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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



NEW PROPOSITIONS 



IN 



SPECULATIVE AND 
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY 




BY 

Lysander Salmon Richards, 

Author of "Vocophy : Indicating the Calling One is 

Best Fitted to Follow," — "The Birth, Development 

and Death of Our Planet in Story," — "The 

Universe: a Description in Brief, — and 

"The History of Marshfield." 



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Copyright 1903 
By I/ysander S. Richards 



Printed by 

The Memorial Press, 

Plymouth, Mass. 



PREFACE. 

The following pages are from my pub- 
lished and unpublished writings, which I have 
collected and put together in this small vol- 
ume for the purpose of preserving in a com- 
pact form some original propositions and 
presentations that I have introduced in the 
realm of philosophy and mental and physical 
science. I use the term original propositions 
and presentations because I believe them 
to be new. At least they are new and origi- 
nal to me, never having read or heard them 
mentioned in my researches in the department 
to which the above treatises referred to be- 
long. 

L. S. Richards. 

Marshfield Hills, 

Massachusetts, U. S. A., 1903. 



CONTENTS. 

Chapter I. 
The Philosophy and Construction of 

Thought 7 

Chapter II. 
The Missing Link 62 

Chapter III. 
Electricity versus Gravitation 69 

Chapter IV. 
The Earth's Extension 87 

Chapter V. 
The Philosophy of Immortality 93 

Chapter VI. 
Some Criticisms on Ancient and Modern 

Philosophers' Theories 115 

Chapter VII. 
Do Rocks Contain Life 142 

Chapter VIII. 
Is There a Center, an End or Limit to 

the Universe ? 148 

Chapter IX. 
Moon and the Weather 157 

Chapter X. 

Philosophy of Transition and Unrest 161 

Chapter XL 

Reason in Animals 167 

Chapter XII. 
Probable cause of gold and silver ores being 
found in extensive mountain ranges 
only 185 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Philosophy and Construction of Thought. 

First, it will be necessary in the study of 
this proposition to analyze thought — find its 
bearings and see how it is constructed and 
operated. When we visit Edison's phono- 
graph we not only admire the mechanical and 
automatic conversations which are carried on 
by it, but are slow to leave the wonder with- 
out learning something of the instrument 
through which the sounds are produced. So 
with thought. We must first become fami- 
liar with the construction of its instrument, 
the brain, through which it manifests itself, 
before we examine the phenomena of thought 
per se. The three most important divisions 
of the brain are the cerebrum, cerebellum and 
the medulla oblongata. The cerebrum is the 
upper portion, and divided into two hemis- 
pheres : one on the left, the other on the right 
side of the head. This portion of the brain 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

is more especially the instrument of thought. 
The cerebellum, which is immediately below 
and back of the cerebrum, and well covered by 
it, is used to regulate the voluntary and in- 
stinctive movements of the muscles, and is 
partially the seat of reproductive propensities. 
The medulla oblongata is the continued up- 
per prolongation of the spinal cord, and runs 
into the central portion of the cranium. It 
is located in the lower portion of the head, 
and is the center of all movements concerned in 
the acts of respiration and deglutition, or 
swallowing — the two most important requi- 
sites in the continuance of our earthly being. 
These centers, however, are not operated by 
their own volition, but by reflex action, an in- 
voluntary movement. We observe this when 
we breathe and swallow ; there is no thought 
or will exercised in the performance of either. 
We do both unconsciously without a mo- 
ment's thought. They work of themselves, 
the same as in the act of passing into sleep; 
we can arrive at that condition only by with- 
drawing ourselves from thought, and it is 
done so silently and thoughtlessly that we 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

know not when we pass into it. How dif- 
ferent are the workings of this portion of the 
brain from those of the cerebellum ! When 
we lift our arm it is a voluntary movement; 
our will is exercised ; we cannot raise it with- 
out thought, although we may often be un- 
conscious when the latter is used in the move- 
ment. The cerebellum is the seat of all vol- 
untary movements of the muscles, and in all 
animals below man belonging to the verte- 
brates, it is more largely developed than any 
other portion of the brain. It is the animal- 
istic portion of the head; and the cerebrum, 
or the upper division of the brain, lessens in 
size as we pass from man through the lower 
orders of the animal kingdom. In man the 
cerebral hemispheres, or cerebrum, reach their 
greatest development and size, and here the 
intellectual faculties give a vast display of 
thought, as manifested in varied and graded 
forms. Another portion of the brain, the 
fourth and last division, but not the least, is 
the tubercular quadrigemina and other gan- 
glionic masses, situated at the base of the 
cranium. They are connected with the nerves 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

of special sensation, and correspond to the 
ganglions of some lower orders of animals in 
which is seated the sense of smell, of sight 
and hearing, and constitute in these animals 
the principal portions of the brain. In man, 
as well as in all animals, it is supposed to be 
the seat of the emotional and instinctive fac- 
ulties. The question now arises, How does 
thought operate upon the brain? First, we 
will commence with its lowest form — that 
prompted by sensation. Up and down the 
spinal cord there are ganglia of sensation, up- 
on which all sense of feeling is registered by 
impressions being made thereon. This prin- 
ciple is illustrated in the recently discovered 
phonograph. It was thought years ago that 
words spoken in a room or hall were im- 
pressed upon the walls ; but this in the minds 
of the masses seemed hypothetical, and the 
idea never took root. But to-day Edison has 
proven, through his little instrument, that this 
hypothesis was true ; for the words articulated 
in a room, striking a disk in place of the walls, 
are not only shown to be impressed thereon, 
but the little instrument — the phonograph — 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

repeats word for word, and not only the 
words but the tone, high and low, soft and 
loud, spoken by the speaker. The impres- 
sions made upon these sensory ganglia are 
similar, though less marked in degree, to the 
inverted impressions made by an object seen 
upon the retina of the eye of an ox immediate- 
ly after he is butchered. It was given in 
evidence in a court of justice in Italy, where 
a man was on trial for murder, that, the image 
of the murderer was impressed on the eye of 
the man murdered while the arm of the ac- 
cused was raised in the act of stabbing his 
victim with the stilleto, the image being so 
plainly stamped on the victim's eye it could 
be readily seen and led to the murderer's con- 
viction. These ganglia of sensation have 
posterior and anterior roots, and sensations are 
transmitted from the skin, or any portion of 
the body, to the posterior roots of these gan- 
glia or nerve centres in the spinal cord, and 
impressed on the registering ganglions, and 
then pass up the sensory tract (a system of 
nerves of sensation) in which is deposited a 
gray matter, and thence to the brain. The 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

anterior roots of these ganglia are the roots 
of motor nerves, and after the sensation has 
passed up the sensory tract to the brain, the 
motor tract (a system of nerves) receives this 
sensation and conveys it down the ganglia or 
nerve centers, and is there transmitted to the 
spot in which the sensation originated, and if 
an injury, pain is felt. These sensations may 
be the result of some injury to the body, or 
sensations of pleasure, or they may be sensa- 
tions resulting from the action of thought ; all 
are, nevertheless, registered upon the regis- 
tering ganglions ; and these impressions 
stamped upon these ganglions, as in thought 
registerings, remain impressed thereon for 
years, and reappear or reproduce themselves 
strangely at times in our dreams, or uncon- 
sciously at other times in our passive medita- 
tions. The sensory tract conveys sensation 
to the back portion of the brain, where 
the feelings and the animal propensities are 
seated, and the motor tract passes into the 
front portion of the brain, where the intellect- 
ual faculties are located. These tracts meet 
in the brain. If the sensory nerves or tracts 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

be severed no sensation below it will be felt; 
all feeling in that direction ceases ; but the 
motor tract is unimpaired, and conveys the 
motion. Let the motor tract be severed, and 
it destroys all motion below it; one cannot 
raise his foot or arm but the sensory tract or 
set of nerves is disturbed thereby, and the sen- 
sation is felt the same. The two tracts are 
independent of each other, yet operate, per- 
haps, together for the attainment of the same 
object. The spinal cord in the infant ex- 
tends down to the sacrum, or the lower part 
of the vertebra, while the upper portion ter- 
minates in the brain ; in fact the cerebrum, 
the cerebellum and the medulla oblongata are 
simply the extensions of the spinal cord. In 
the adult the spinal cord does not extend 
down to the very lowest portion of the verte- 
bra, but extends farther upward and develops 
into the cerebrum, or the intellectual lobes of 
the brain. As the sensory ganglia scattered 
through the spinal cord is the register on 
which all sensations or feelings are impressed, 
so the ganglia or grand sensorium in the brain 
is the store-house or record-book in which the 



13 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

higher feelings, developed into intellectual 
thought, stamped and stored to be brought out 
and used, perhaps to-morrow, next year or 
years in the future, as circumstances arise to 
recall it. I am well aware that every particle 
of matter, it is said, that existed in the body 
seven years before, has wasted and passed 
away, and it would seem that the ganglion 
registering sensations, with the impressions, 
passes away with it. The ganglion does 

probably waste and disappear, but the process, 
the new taking the place of the old — is so 
very gradual that the stamp, the impression, 
the form, remains thereon — the same as a scar 
on the body remains unchanged for scores of 
years, or for life. 

Does thought begin in man? We will 
pass down the long chain of animal life, com- 
mencing with the lowest forms and work up 
and study the development of thought. Be- 
ginning with the protozoa, the lowest form of 
animal life, to which sponges belong, we find 
no trace of thought, simply because there is no 
receptacle, or brain, through which it can 
make itself manifest. Nature always adapts 



14 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

means to ends ; and if there is a use or de- 
mand for any faculty or property, an instru- 
ment or organ is gradually fashioned through 
which it can be exercised. If on the other 
hand, any organ of the body ceases to be used 
or exercised in the course of many genera- 
tions, the organ dwindles away, and is lost 
Passing to the next order in the animal 
kingdom we come to the radiates, to 
which star fishes, jelly fishes and the polyps, 
or coral builders belong; and do we find 
thought manifested in this order? It might 
be argued that the beautiful forms of coral, 
the mammoth coral reefs, the large islands of 
coral built by these polyps exhibit some traces 
of thought ; and yet when we study into their 
habits, we find that coral is simply the secre- 
tions of this animal, the same as guano moun- 
tain deposits in Peru are dropped by the birds 
soaring among the Andes. The mode of sus- 
taining life among the polyps by throwing out 
its circle of feelers and taking into its mouth 
that which happens to pass within its reach, 
exhibits that want of energy and thought 
manifested in the higher animals ; and among 



15 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

the various families comprising the order of 
radiates the same absence of a receptacle or 
brain for the exercise of thought is as appar- 
ent as in the protozoa, the lower order here- 
tofore described. So low are these animals 
in the scale of creation that they are blessed 
with only two important organs, and those 
are the mouth and stomach, (a simple sac to 
receive the food) and the waste passes out 
of the body at no particular place, but here 
and there, wherever it can find vent. 

We pass now to the next order in animal 
life — the mollusks, or shell animals ; do we 
find thought, in any form, displayed in this 
order? Take the clam or the oyster with 
which the masses are most familiar, and 
how imperfectly developed are they ! A lump 
of flesh, with but few organs, no evidence is 
manifested of a receptacle, or brains for 
thought, nor the least manifestations of it in 
their works. Next in the order of the ani- 
mal creation comes the articulate, which in- 
cludes the worms, insects and spiders. In 
the works of these animals there is certainly 
so/ne skill and ingenuity displayed, and here 



16 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

begins our study of thought; here is seen the 
rudimentary manifestation of thought un- 
developed, and here for the first time in our 
researches through the lower orders, do we 
find a receptacle, or brain, for the exercise of 
thought. 

We call it thought, although it is hardly 
worthy the name in comparison with the 
thought manifested through the brain 
of man. It bears the same relation 
to the latter as does the simple and shape- 
less oyster to the complex man, in belonging 
to the one great family which characterizes 
the animal kingdom. Although we find a 
brain in the articulates, yet it lacks one of the 
important divisions which gives man his su- 
perior intelligence — the cerebrum, or the up- 
per hemispheres of the brain; and the works 
and labors of these animals are what one 
might expect from such an organized brain. 
The bee that exhibits such wonderful mechan- 
ism, such ingenuity in its movements, such 
rules of government in its colony, is, after all, 
largely automatic in its labors. The bee can- 
not, like man, or even the horse or dog, be 



17 



Prop 2 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

educated; it is no further advanced or de- 
veloped than it was one or two thousand years 
ago. The same is true of the spider. And 
yet when we look at the labors of the 
tarantula, the ingenious spider that 
builds its nests in the ground, the 
interior of which is a fine piece of 
masonry and as smooth and polished as the 
walls of the finest house around us, the ma- 
terial consisting of fifteen layers of silk, and 
as many layers of clay, laid alternately, with 
a trap door ingeniously made, (a hinge on the 
back of it, and the door smoothly beveled to 
fit the entrance perfectly) these works, as I 
viewed them in the mountains of Sierra Ne- 
vada, impressed upon me a feeling of admira- 
tion for the genius displayed by these not al- 
together lovely, but death-stinging insects. 

Nevertheless this ingenuity existed a thous- 
and, or thousands of years ago, no improve- 
ment has ever been made, and doubtless never 
will be by them ; this is instinct ; a manifesta- 
tion of thought nevertheless, and in some in- 
stances perhaps a feeble attempt at reason. 
Instinct is that part of our intellectual being, 



18 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

and of all animal creation (save the few low- 
er orders) that is not susceptible to develop- 
ment or growth, but remains nearly the same 
through all the species, and for all time, save 
perhaps in some rare cases in individual move- 
ments, while reason is that property in ani- 
mals that can be, and is, improved or devel- 
oped. A dog searching for his master comes 
to two roads which make an acute angle; not 
knowing which one to take, he stops and looks 
about. If he were governed simply by in- 
stinct he would not hesitate a moment, but 
take one of them instantly, unhesitatingly, the 
same as a bee a long way from home strikes a 
straight line immediately, unhesitatingly for 
its hive; the dog, however, in the absence of 
any direct knowledge as to his master's 
whereabouts is obliged to stop and think. 
Possibly a previous experience in choosing the 
wrong road has taught him to be more cau- 
tious; and this time he stops to reason, and 
considers the point — which road the master 
would be most likely to travel ; he has lost the 
scent, and finally after mature deliberation he 
takes the road he thinks is the right one, and 



19 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

goes in search of him. The chief promoter 
of reason or thought is experience, and when 
an animal possesses the instrument, the or- 
gan, which is the cerebrum, in which thought 
can be exercised and developed, then reason 
crops out above instinct. But in the articu- 
lates the cerebellum is the highest division of 
the brain, and here is the seat of instinct. We 
must call it thought, although it is the lowest 
manifested form of it ; and here we will di- 
vide thought into two parts, or forms: in- 
stinct and reason; instinct being the lower 
form, undeveloped and uneducated, while rea- 
son is the higher, and susceptible of improve- 
ment or development. Instinct works as 
though governed by reflex action, the same 
that operates our swallowing and respiration — 
an automatic, unconscious movement, in which 
our volition has but little part. We breathe 
because we cannot help it. No amount of 
will left to itself can stop it. Having found 
that thought in its lower form, instinct, is 
manifested in the order of animals called ar- 
ticulates we shall leave the bees, spiders and 
worms to enjoy their rudimentary shadow of 



20 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

intelligence as best they may and pass on to 
the next order of animals called the verte- 
brates, or those having a backbone, of which 
man is a part and parcel. To the ordinary 
observer it would at first appear that the low- 
er animals of this order are almost entirely 
destitute of thought, and, instead of being 
placed higher in the scale of animal creation 
than the bees and ants, they should be placed 
lower; for the thought manifested in the lat- 
ter, through instinct, is certainly higher than 
the apparent absence of thought in the fishes. 
But this is erroneous, for these creatures of 
the watery deep do possess thought, and it is 
brought out when properly induced. Some 
years ago a little girl residing in one of the 
rural districts upon the South Shore, not very 
far from where I lived, became interested in 
fishes, and every morning visited a small river 
which flowed through the town of Hingham. 
After throwing crumbs to these creatures 
every day, she at last succeeded in calling 
them up near the shore to their breakfast. 
She soon became famous in that region, and 
people far and near called to witness her re- 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

markable power in this direction. Multi- 
tudes of fishes would obey her call to the 
shore as quickly as a dog answers the call for 
his dish of meat and quicker than most cats 
for their daily meal. This it must be per- 
ceived is a step beyond instinct, it is thought, 
educated and trained. The fishes were edu- 
cated into the belief that her call meant some- 
thing — something to satisfy their hunger ; and 
off they rushed to the shore to obey it. This 
I am aware is a low manifestation of thought ; 
and yet how many of the "lords of creation" 
rise much higher than answering calls to sat- 
isfy the wants of the stomachs? The ants, 
governed by instinct, would not respond to 
such a call. We will next advance a step to 
reptiles. Rev. Thomas Hill, ex-president of 
Harvard college, tells the following: "While 
observing a toad which made itself at home 
around my front door step, I found it strug- 
gling in the attempt to swallow a large grass- 
hopper; it succeeded in partially swallowing 
the front portion, but the insect was too long, 
and the hinder portion protruded from the 
reptile's mouth with but little prospect of any 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

further progress in passing down the valley 
of death through the throat. The toad real- 
izing its critical condition, bent its head to- 
wards the ground, and endeavored to push it 
down the sesophagus, but after repeated and 
unsuccessful attempts, the trial was given up, 
the angle being so small that there was not 
purchase enough to crowd it down. The 
toad, however, was master of the occasion, 
and at once raised its hind legs, thereby mak- 
ing a greater angle; (nearly perpendicular) 
and thus the insect was easily pushed down 
the broad highway leading to the stomach. 
On another occasion this toad experienced a 
similar struggle with a large earth worm. It 
succeeded in swallowing about three-fifths its 
length, but at last, through fatigue, it could 
not swallow fast enough, and the worm suc- 
ceeded in crawling out of the toad's mouth 
faster than the latter could swallow it. At 
last the reptile used its wits, and with its for- 
ward feet clenched its own throat, and held 
the worm fast, while it succeeded in swallow- 
ing another inch; then clenching the throat 
again, and holding it firm in its grip until an- 



23 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

other swallow was made, it finally succeeded 
in devouring the entire worm. Here is a 
manifestation of thought" continues Ex-Pres. 
Hill, "higher than instinct; for through ex- 
perience the toad found that no regular or or- 
dinary methods would apply in these cases, 
for its peculiar situation demanded extra ex- 
ertion and thought to secure its prey and find 
relief." 

Passing on to the next higher order in ani- 
mal life we come to birds. Here we find the 
brain a little more highly developed. The 
cerebral hemispheres are yet small, the cere- 
bellum being much larger. Many of the do- 
mesticated birds exhibit at times considerable 
thought when called out. We see this, in a 
low degree, in the ready obedience of hens, 
ducks, etc., to the call of their keeper, while 
greater development of thought is manifested 
in the trained canary bird and the parrot. The 
next higher order of animals comes the quad- 
rupeds ; and here a more highly developed 
brain is quite apparent, and consequently a 
higher grade of thought is found. The dog 
is perhaps as high a representative of this 



24 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

class as any, and its intelligence is, I think, 
largely due to its intimate association with 
man. Wherever man is found on the face of 
the globe, there the dog is also. The intel- 
ligence of man is undoubtedly imparted in a 
low degree to the dog. Through countless 
generations his brain has been developing by 
means of this intimacy until now a dog that 
fails to manifest some thought in his move- 
ments is pronounced worthless. Instinct is 
a large factor in a dog, but it is not by any 
means the only factor. Reason crops out 
here and there in a thousand remarkable in- 
cidents which are familiar to most men. 

The cerebrum is larger in quadrupeds than 
in the lower order of animals, but the cere- 
bellum and the medulla oblongata are by far 
the largest portions, and furnish a much lower 
order of thought, because animalistic in its 
make-up. The brain in some quadrupeds is 
larger and heavier than that of man, but the 
size is no indication of the amount of thought 
it is capable of producing. For that we must 
look to the portion of the head in which the 
brain is situated ; if in the back and lower 



25 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

portion, where the cerebellum lies, as in the 
quadrupeds, and lower orders, there less 
thought is displayed ; but if it lies largely in 
the upper portion, or in the cerebrum, as in 
man, there thought has full sway; while the 
amount varies in different individuals in pro- 
portion to the shape of the cerebrum, or the 
cerebral hemispheres, and the quality of the 
brain mass therein contained. Our next step 
is the consideration of thought manifested in 
the quadrumana, which includes the apes, 
baboons, monkeys, etc. Here I shall not at- 
tempt to prove that the thought of the ape 
is any more identical with the thought of man 
than is the thought of the lowest Hottentot 
with that of Herbert Spencer. Nor is it my 
purpose to compare the general structure of 
the quadrumana with that of the bimana — 
man. To the brain we look for thought ; and 
what do we find? The ape is the highest 
representative of the quadrumana, but its 
skull exhibits a very small receptacle for the 
cerebral hemispheres. The frontal portion o£ 
the head, so conspicuous in man, retreats 
backward in the ape, and hence the back brain 



26 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

or the cerebellum predominates in these crea- 
tures. The quadrumana, however, is a long 
step in advance of quadrupeds, both in the. 
structure of the cranium and brain, and the 
quality of thought. We see this in the ordin- 
ary monkey traveling in our country towns 
with its bosom friend, the organ-grinder. It 
fills the office of treasurer by passing around 
its tiny hat among the crowd to collect funds 
sufficient to please its master. It is anxious 
for a cent, and will work as hard for one, as 
most of its superiors whom we call man. It 
is said that no animal but man can use tools 
or weapons for defence. Monkeys, however, 
are known to open boxes, and baboons, when 
traveling together in large numbers, will 
attack men by throwing stones at them. 
Apes, when domesticated, sometimes use 
knives and forks at the table in eating their 
meals, with the ease of man. One is described 
as making his own bed, carefully and smoothly 
laying out the clothes, and borrowing or imi- 
tating some of the evils of its superiors, it 
stealthily passes into the chamber of its 
master and draws out a nice blanket from the 



27 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

made up bed, runs off, and places it on its 
own, showing conclusively that he is equal to 
man in his appreciation of a good bed. This 
ape lived in the house with the family, and its 
habits and manners were like those of a child. 
All it appeared to require to perfect its accom- 
plishments was articulation, or speech. In 
Paraguay there are monkeys that can utter 
five distinct sounds to express their varied 
emotions and feelings. The apes in their 
native haunts, use a language among them- 
selves. When traveling on a foraging expedi- 
tion into an African village, the main body oi 
them will keep a little back and allow the 
scouts to go ahead; and if any danger is 
apparent they sound an alarm, and the pickets 
will beat a hasty retreat. Thought may be 
further divided into three parts : Intellectual, 
moral and animalistic. The latter is common 
to all animals, from the spiders upward, and 
is confined to the cerebellum and the 
medula oblongata, while the moral is seated 
at the top of the cerebrum, near the crown of 
the head, between the intellectual and animal 
faculties ; and the shape of the cranium in the 



28 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

monkeys, running comparatively high from 
the ears to the crown, indicates a fair 
amount of morality. Some time ago a keeper 
entered a cage in which were kept a baboon 
and a monkey. Through some unexplained 
cause the baboon attacked the keeper and 
would have dispatched him in a short time 
had not the monkey, through its generous 
and sacrificing nature, attracted the attention 
of the baboon toward itself by its cries and 
bites. The keeper escaped, but the poor 
monkey paid dearly for its generosity. The 
affection of some monkeys for their young is 
very great; at the death of their offspring 
some mothers have been known to mourn 
themselves to death over the loss. The intel- 
lectual faculties are active in some. An in- 
experienced monkey will place an egg on the 
ground, take a stone up into a tree, and let it 
fall on the egg to break it. The egg scatters 
and is lost on the ground, and the monkey 
gets but little. He does not repeat this opera- 
tion a second time, for the experience of the 
first has demonstrated the fact that none of the 
yolk can be obtained by this method. Hence 



29 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

his reason (the outgrowth of experience) dic- 
tates to it the second time not to go up into 
the tree, but to crack the shell of the egg 
gently with his hand and save the contents. 
Although the thought manifested in the 
quadrumana is in advance in quality above 
the quadrupeds, yet it is far inferior to that 
manifested by man ; for the lowest barbarian 
on the face of the earth exhibits qualities of 
thought superior to the highest quadrumana. 
The barbarian, however low, is master of the 
most powerful quadruped. He hunts the lion 
and the tiger, and through his genius succeeds 
in conquering them. He constructs a hut 
close by the dead carcass, kindles a fire, 
dresses the meat, and cures the skin to throw 
over him ; while no single quadrumana ever 
attacks a lion or tiger, constructs a hut for 
shelter, dresses meat, cures the skin, or 
kindles a fire to keep him warm, although apes 
have been seen warming their hands over the 
fire hunters had left, and mourning over the 
expiring embers, but not manifesting suffi- 
cient thought to throw wood thereon and keep 
the fire alive. The nearest imitation to man 



30 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

in dress is in placing mats, made of leaves, 
upon their heads, and sometimes covering the 
body with leaves when lying down to sleep. 
We do not discuss in these papers whether 
man, the bimana, is an outgrowth of the quad- 
rumane or not. What we want to follow is 
the line of thought running through the 
various orders of the animal kingdom. 
Since leaving the articulates, or the bees, 
spiders, etc., we find that instinct is being 
gradually developed into intelligence or rea- 
son. Instinct still preponderates, in all orders 
of animal life below man. We come now to 
the brain of man, through which thought 
makes itself manifest. If the increase or 
development of thought is in exact ratio to 
the increase or size of brain mass, we should 
expect to find in the whale, which has a brain 
nearly twice the size of man, a corresponding 
increase in intellectual power. But instead of 
finding double the intelligence that is dis- 
played by man this monster of the deep 
scarcely touches the hem of thought emanating 
from the brain of even the lowest races of 
men ; and the same is true of the elephant and 



31 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

other animals containing a greater amount of 
brain mass than man. This simply demon- 
strates that it is not the quantity of brain 
mass that makes the thought of man superior 
to the beast, but the quality. On examination, 
the interior brain mass of these animals and 
man, a great difference is found in their com- 
position and shape. In the lower animals the 
outside of the brain is comparatively smooth. 
No uneveness to speak of is discovered upon 
them until we arrive at the rodentia, which 
includes the rats, squirrels, etc. Here the 
smoothness of the surface is first disturbed; 
rudimentary foldings or convolutions are 
seen, where a small portion of the surface is 
folded slightly over ; and the number of these 
convolutions or foldings, increases from these 
animals to the highest orders below man. 
But even in the highest of them the foldings 
are few and inferior, and simply feeble 
attempts to imitate the convolutions which, 
in the brain of man, are multitudinous. In 
removing the uper portion of the skull of man 
a very peculiar and beautiful arrangement of 
the surface of the brain is observed. The 



32 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

folding or convolutions mentioned above re- 
mind one of the great canyons of Colorado 
pictured upon canvas. Deep gorges are seen 
here and there, winding throughout the sur- 
face of the brain, and leaving but small, nar- 
row surfaces to keep the skull propped up. 
These convolutions are covered with a gray 
matter, and this matter is the medium through 
which thought is manifested. The more 
numerous the convolutions, with their deep 
gorgings and windings, the greater will be 
the amount of gray matter deposited on its 
continued extended surface, and the higher 
the thought displayed. Like the coasts of our 
continents, the greater the crooks, the inlets, 
the bays and gulfs, the more extended is the 
coastline; and a corresponding increase of 
seaport furnishes a country with unbounded 
facilities for commerce. And just to this ex- 
tent does a nation grow and become more en- 
lightened and enterprising, as we see illus- 
trated in the remarkable growth of North 
America and Europe. Could the gray mat- 
ter deposited on the surface of the numerous 
layers and convolutions of the brain be spread 



33 



Prop 3 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

out on a smooth and even surface it would 
occupy about 660 square inches. And yet 
this large extent of matter through which 
thought undoubtedly operates is stored away 
in the small space occupied by the brain mass. 
It is not so surprising in view of these facts, 
that our thought is so extended and memory 
so expanded. The convolutions are mostly 
found on the top and front portions of the 
brain or cerebrum. In the cerebellum, the 
layers do not possess the depth of the convolu- 
tions contained in the cerebral hemispheres. 
In the brain of children there are less convolu- 
tions, and a corresponding decrease of gray 
matter. Instinct is a greater element in 
young children than reason, and it is not until 
the brain increases in size, with an increase of 
the number of convolutions and the gray mat- 
ter deposited thereon, that we can look for a 
greater display of reason than instinct. The 
lowest races of men are known to possess 
fewer convolutions and less varied than the 
most intellectual portion of mankind. If 
thought lacks the instrument through which 
it can make itself manifest, it must remain at 



34 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

rest. The. barbarian has not the quantity or 
quality of brain to make him think intelli- 
gently. The front portion of the cerebrum 
where the convolutions and gray matter is 
largely found, is somewhat lacking, as the 
backward slope of the forehead indicates. 
The same slope is more conspicuously seen in 
idiots, and more or less in almost all unintelli- 
gent persons. A great person, intellectually, 
generally possesses quantity and quality of 
brain mass in a large degree. In a small head, 
whose numerous convolutions are varied and 
deep, with a thick deposit of gray matter upon 
them, which is often the case, we shall find 
greater intellectual power than in a man with 
an overgrown head (as some I have seen) 
whose convolutions are symmetrical and the 
gray matter thin with probably a considerable 
amount of water to fill up. Hence, al- 
though phrenology is undoubtedly in the main 
practical and correct, yet the true estimate of 
intellectual power cannot be accurately given 
until the cranium covering the brain be 
removed to detect the condition and quality of 
the brain enclosed heretofore described. In 



35 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

speaking of the quality of the brain we do not 
mean the chemical analysis, as in the analysis 
of a cabbage to find its chemical properties. 
It concerns us not whether it contains more 
or less potash, albumen, or phosphorus, to give 
it intellectual power; these have to do with 
the health only of the organ. It is well 
known, I am aware, that phosphorus is an im- 
portant chemical property of the brain, and 
the thoughtless conclusion is arrived at by 
some that by eating a liberal amount of fish, 
which contains a considerable quantity of 
phosphorus, one will increase the brain 
power; but this fallacy cannot be dispelled 
more quickly than by a practical illustration 
of the fisherman. None live more upon a fish 
diet than this class of people; but do they or 
those living upon the sea or by the sea, mani- 
fest greater intellectual power than those hav- 
ing less opportunities to live upon this kind of 
diet? 

The question now arises, how does thought 
make itself manifest when the brain and the 
body are apparently at rest during the hours 
of sleep ? In the hospital at Montpelier, many 



36 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

years ago, there was a young lady whose 
brain was partially exposed — the result of a 
terrible disease which caused the loss of a 
portion of her scalp, skull and dura mater. 
A rare opportunity was offered to study the 
operations of thought upon the brain mass. 
During profound sleep her brain was com- 
paratively quiet, and remained motionless in- 
side the cranium; but when she dreamed, the 
brain mass began to move and protrude out- 
side of the cranium. When her dreams were 
the most active and exciting, (as she after- 
wards stated) the brain was most disturbed 
and the protusion was greatest. So was it 
during her waking hours ; when engaged in 
lively conversation, the protusion was the 
greatest. Outward applications to different 
portions of the body directs the train of 
thought in our dreams. A patient placed a 
bottle of hot water at his feet after getting 
into bed, and dreamed that he was traveling 
on a volcano and found the heat unbearable; 
another one applied a blister to the top of his 
head, and dreamed that the Indians were 
scalping him. A man half-asleep and half- 



37 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

awake imagined a person in his chamber, 
with his hand placed upon his shoulder; he 
became frightened and dared not move. On 
fully awaking, however, he found that the 
sole cause of this peculiar feeling was due to 
the shoulder being uncovered and bare, caus- 
ing a chilliness there, which felt like a man's 
cold hand. This leads us into the inquiry of 
the condition of the brain and operation of 
thought during sleep, made manifest through 
dreams. During profound sleep the cerebral 
hemispheres, or cerebrum, are perfectly quiet; 
but the medulla oblongata, or the lowest brain, 
is active, or at work. This is evident be- 
cause respiration, or breathing-power, has its 
seat in the lower brain ; as breathing is indis- 
pensable to life, we breathe the same at night, 
while sleeping, as during waking hours. The 
cerebellum is more disturbed in most dreams 
than the cerebrum, simply because in the for- 
mer the instinctive and animalistic faculties 
are found. And our dreams are generally of 
a low order of thought, and unreasonable — 
just what we might expect to proceed from an 
inferior portion of the brain, as is the little 



38 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

brain, or cerebellum. When reason is the 
largest factor in our dreams — when difficult 
problems are solved, and philosophic, 
scientific thought is displayed — the cerebrum 
is exercised. We will now consider the 
cause of incongruities, the disassociation of 
ideas, the ridiculous manner and impossibili- 
ties displayed in the arrangement of thought 
in many of our dreams. 

The brain is divided into compartments, or 
organs, and each compartment has a special 
function to perform. Some of the organs are 
inactive and in profound sleep, while others 
are awake, and at work. Now in sensible 
and reasonable thought all the faculties are 
active, and are intimately associated with each 
other ; each and all must blend, cooperate and; 
harmonize completely with one another. 
While in dreams that are absurd, ridiculous 
and unnatural, all the faculties or organs but 
two or three are asleep and quiet, and the or- 
gans or compartments that are awake are left 
to themselves ; and like a horse guided with 
but one rein, they perform peculiar gyrations 
and make but little progress in the path of 



39 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

well regulated thought. Thought made 
manifest in dreams rarely considers or com- 
prehends time or space, and hence friends 
who departed this life years ago are made to 
appear alive and natural, and events which 
have never had a reality or an existence ap- 
pear real and unquestionable in dreams. In 
our waking hours we bring time and space 
to bear upon our thoughts, and thus dispell 
all incongruities, or contradictions, that appear 
so reasonable in our dreams. We bring our 
volition into action during our waking hours, 
and muster the forces which all of our facul- 
ties possess, when thinking upon any ques- 
tion; but in our sleep we lose control of the 
will. Our thoughts manifested through 
dreams are involuntary, and we cannot 
bring forward this and that faculty to bear 
upon the subject through the will, as we can 
in our waking hours. But it should not be 
understood that our volition must be power- 
less before we can fall asleep ; for it is absurd 
to suppose that any amount of will one pos- 
sesses can stop wholly its operation, any more 
than one can directly lift himself from the 



40 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

ground by his boot straps. He may be, and 
is able to change the direction of his thought ; 
but to stop the action of his will before pass- 
ing into sleep is impossible. Our dreams are 
generally made up of events that are most re- 
cent. Any narrow escape from some alarm- 
ing accident during the day will, very likely, 
occupy our thoughts through dreams at 
night; and at the most frightful point in the 
dream we startle and awake. Our will is at 
once exercised, and our reason with lightning 
speed is brought into action, and in a moment 
the inconsistencies and absurdities are made 
apparent. The cause of this sudden awaken- 
ing is unquestionably due to the great pressure 
on that portion of the brain severely exercised 
by such stirring thought as fright produces. 
This we see illustrated in the movement of 
the brain of the young lady heretofore men- 
tioned, where the brain largely protruded from 
the opening of the skull when she was experi- 
encing any excitement. Hence the pressure 
on the skull in such startling dreams must 
be great enough to awaken the sense of feel- 
ing, as the pricking of the body by a pin 
startles and awakens us. 



4i 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

Nightmare, delirum tremens, spring from 
one common parent, and are nursed by the 
same hand. Each and all are manifestations 
of thought proceeding from a disordered or- 
ganism, but arising from a different cause. 
The nightmare is a frightful dream, and caused 
by the unhealthy action of the stomach. 
Sometimes on retiring to bed, the food has not 
sufficient time to digest before sleep over- 
takes us ; and again, through no want of time, 
but through some disease of the stomach, 
food cannot be digested. When we lay our 
bodies upon a bed and pass into sleep, the 
heart becomes more quiet, the blood conse- 
quently circulates but little, and very slowly, 
and the contraction and expansion of the 
stomach, with the involuntary movements of 
the hair-like villi surrounding the inner coat- 
ing of the stomach, and the flow of gastric 
juice from the gastric glands therein, which 
all together contribute to the digestion of 
food, to a great extent partially cease, giving 
the over-worked stomach, for the time be- 
ing, a load upon it which is difficult 
to master. This disturbed feeling is 



42 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

conveyed to the brain through the pneumo- 
gastric nerve, which excites into ac- 
tion the organ of the brain most easily dis- 
turbed; and that is the organ of fear. What 
attribute of thought, what distinctive feature 
of the mind is more common or prominent 
than fear? It is continually operated upon 
in one way or another, morally, socially and 
physically. A lack of combativeness or de- 
structiveness, even, is not a proper substitute 
for fear. All nightmare and delirium tre- 
mens appeal to no other organ more than the 
organ of fear. The cerebrum is not much 
disturbed by nightmare, for this affection of 
the brain is very unreasonable, and belongs 
more to the animal portion of our being than 
the intellectual. Often have I dreamt of 

dodging and jumping over countless number 
of enormous snakes ; the ugly serpents giving 
me chase ; and numerous attempts to hide and 
escape from robbers and murderers on my 
track, which excited an intense fear; then I 
would suddenly awake at the very moment the 
pursuer had almost secured me as his victim, 
to find it was all a dream ; and at times my 



43 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

body was so completely at rest, so death-like in 
its action, the heart so motionless, and all the 
internal movements so nearly suspended, that 
for a few moments after completely awaking, 
I could neither stir hand nor foot, nor start 
to life again and give motion to my prostrate 
form, except by attempting to move my little 
finger, and in this manner gradually sending 
the shock through my frame, and setting my 
body in motion. Delirium tremens operate 
upon the mind in a manner similar to night- 
mare. In becoming the receptacle of alco- 
holic drinks the stomach becomes diseased; 
this in turn affects the pneumogastric 
nerve, and disturbs the brain not only in sleep, 
but in waking hours. The organ of fear is 
excited, as in nightmare; the victim believes 
he has fallen among snakes and the most hid- 
eous beasts imaginable. Even the horrors of 
hell are pictured before him ; and at times the 
poor sot finds no relief until death puts an end 
to his fiery imaginations and experiences. 
The old doctrine of hell-fire, now nearly ob- 
solete in the minds of most people, literally 
speaking, owes its existence to an unbalanced, 



44 



New Propositions in Philosophy, 

mental or physical organism. It may not 
have proceeded as with nightmare and delir- 
ium tremens from a diseased or disordered 
stomach, and yet we would not say that it 
did not. But be that as it may, the same or- 
gan of fear in the brain was excited, a God 
of wrath, with a lake of fire and brimstone for 
his erring children, pictured to the imagina- 
tion for centuries, developed the organ of fear, 
and crazed the brains of millions of people 
with the nightmare of superstition. That 
craze is now numbered among the delusions 
of the past, and God is now a God of love and 
no longer a God of fear, or God of wrath. 
Thought is sometimes simi-conscious, as in 
somnambulism ; this is the nearest to the 
waking state of any of the phases of sleep, 
and it often happens that in this state a per- 
son can perform more dangerous and daring 
feats than when wholly awake, because his 
mind is not disturbed by outward things and 
surroundings. When for instance a som- 
nambulist walks in the night upon roofs, and 
upon high, narrow and precipitous places, he 
is not aware of the danger, as when awake, 



45 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

and hence can balance himself with much 
greater ease. In this case double conscious- 
ness sometimes occurs ; that is, events in the 
imagination of outward things fill the mind of 
the somnambulist, and, immediately after, 
thoughts of the inner, intellectual man follow. 
Neither condition has, in its separate state, 
any recollection of the other, and hence, on 
waking to entire consciousness, it seems that 
two separate lives have been passed. From 
time immemorial the belief has been preva- 
lent with some that dreams often 
indicate forthcoming events ; but there 
is nothing in the structure of thought 
that can substantiate the proposition. Nev- 
ertheless, we must not be blind to the fact 
that by them events have frequently been fore- 
told. The wife of Julius Caesar dreamed, the 
night before his assassination, that her husband 
fell bleeding across her knees. Persons have 
saved their lives by being forewarned in their 
sleep of some accident which would occur on 
the following day to the party they intended 
to join, and thoughtfully remaining at home 
to avoid the danger. That thousands upon 



46 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

thousands — ay, millions upon millions — of 
events occur which are not forewarned or 
foretold makes it possible that one thought 
in a million or billion might, through the 
boundless wanderings of the mind in dreams, 
accidentally hit upon an event, or train of 
events, corresponding to some actually occur- 
ing in the near future, but which would pass 
into oblivion (as they do every night) and be 
entirely forgotten if the millionth or billionth 
chance did not accidentally happen to come to 
pass. 

Is thought the product of the brain ? Let us 
investigate the phenomena of thought a little 
further before we give an answer. To the 
question, Why should thought be so seriously 
affected when the brain becomes diseased? 
the reply is often given that if thought were 
immortal and independent of the body it 
would not be weakened by any defect of the 
brain mass. If the instrument or organ 
through which thought operates is injured or 
damaged, as in a cornet, how can a cornetist 
play, or thought play upon, or operate the 
brain? Persons become insane through some 



47 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

disease of the organ by which thought makes 
itself manifest. Generally only a portion of 
the brain is diseased ; and in insanity it oper- 
ates in many cases, the same as in frightful 
dreams, nightmare, etc. Here we are aware 
that the incongruity, the unreasonableness of 
thought exhibited is due to the disassociation 
of ideas. The diseased portion is unhealthy in 
its action ; like the loss of a spoke in a wheel, 
it unbalances the whole, and is of but little 
use to us. Good, well-developed thought re- 
quires the harmonious action of every portion 
of the brain ; and each and every organ must 
be active and blend with one another, as the 
white light from the sun requires the presence 
of every color in the prism to perfect it. Our 
answer, then, must be that thought is not the 
offspring of the brain, but that the brain is the 
machine, or instrument, the only instrument 
through which it is possible for thought to 
make itself manifest. Could our eyes be 
made sufficiently microscopic, with a magni- 
fying power far surpassing anything man has 
ever produced, to examine an active brain ex- 
posed to view, it is my belief that the results 



48 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

of thought in its multitudinous ways, could 
be seen operating upon the brain, in all its 
varied portions, as apparently and with as 
delicate a motion as does wind upon the reeds 
of the organ, which through the fingers of a 
Mozart touching its keys, sends rich tones 
through cycles of time to the ears of the civi- 
lized world, or the receiving plate of a tele- 
phone, in catching the delicate sound waves 
emanating from the speaker, and their trans- 
mission through electrical action over a wire 
hundreds of miles distant. Because a por- 
tion of the brain becomes diseased, and the 
harmonious working of thought is conse- 
quently disturbed, it furnishes no evidence 
that thought per se, is not an independent 
power behind the brain. Steam, and electric- 
ity which sends the iron horse over the net- 
work of railways spanning the continent, is 
invisible, but its great power is felt through- 
out the length and breadth of the land. Is 
steam or electricity the product of the loco- 
motive, or is the locomotive merely the instru- 
ment through which invisible steam or elec- 
tricity operates? The brain is the servant of 



49 



Prop 4 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

thought, and if the former is deficient in size, 
in shape, in quality and harmony of all its 
parts, the display of thought will be corre- 
spondingly weak. Take the brain of an idiot, 
observe its shape; the backward slope in 
frontal portion indicates a small cerebrum, 
especially in that locality where the reasoning 
and intellectual faculties reside. Thought — 
intellectual thought — is here deprived of an 
instrument through which it can make itself 
manifest ; and yet this portion of the brain is 
capable of development. One-half of the 

idiots who enter institutions for the idiotic be- 
tween the ages of five and twelve graduate 
with the cerebrum developed, and an in- 
creased intellect sufficient to obtain a liveli- 
hood and perform the ordinary duties of life. 
Does not thought lie dormant in the brain of 
an idiot, awaiting the perfection of an instru- 
ment through which it can unfold itself? A 
pint bottle cannot contain a quart of water. 
A very great man intellectually, always pos- 
sesses a well formed, and good sized head, 
and especially prominent where the intellect- 
ual, reasoning faculties lie, and he could not 



5o 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

be intellectually great unless the instrument 
through which thought operates was well 
built and adequate to perform the task devolv- 
ing upon it. A small, ill-formed and poorly 
equipped instrument could never do it. 

Let us now give a little more attention to 
the composition, construction and effect of 
thought. What is thought? The spinal 
cord and the brain contain, as before men- 
tioned, registering ganglia on which are im- 
pressed sensations of pleasure or injury to the 
body and conveyed by the sensory tract to the 
registering ganglion, and stamped thereon. 
Sensations resulting from the action of 
thought are impressed or stamped on the 
grand sensorium in the brain; that thought 
stamped on these ganglia in early childhood, 
and recalled and repeated in old age, proves 
the truth of this long established hypothesis. 
Granting its correctness, it requires something 
more than an imaginary, shadowy something 
to stamp itself upon a ganglion, or any form 
of matter, and retain the impression for 
scores of years. We can readily understand 
how speech impresses and stamps itself on the 



5i 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

disc of the telephone, for sound causes a vi- 
bration of the air through which it passes, and 
on reaching the telephone stamps its impres- 
sions thereon. This is accomplished by a 
force called motion. If thought is a sub- 
stance, as one writer claims, it must possess a 
force behind to stamp or impress it on the 
ganglia, and that is certainly beyond our con- 
ception. Our thoughts are largely made up 
of impressions recorded or stamped upon the 
sensorium. Recall all the thoughts possible 
emanating from the brain within the past 
twenty-four hours, and it will be noticed that 
most of them occupied our thoughts before, 
some of them concerning events of the past 
and similar events to come. They have been 
stored away in the brain for future use, like 
the ruminants who eat grass or hay, store it 
away in one of their stomachs, while at their 
leisure they bring it up and chew the cud. 
These events or occurrences are stamped on 
the sensorium in the brain; they are evolved 
in our mind, and we think of them over and 
over. Now these impressions which consti- 
tute a portion of our thoughts, being stamped 



%2 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

upon the sensorium as tangibly and as really 
as a figure head is impressed upon a silver 
coin, must necessarily perish when our body 
dies. But there is something behind the im- 
pression that is stamped on the brain, the 
thing, the force, the power we call thought 
exists above, beyond and outside the stamped 
impression, it is independent of it, as much 
so as the thought that sets the printers type 
and impress it on the newspaper; the news- 
paper decays and the stamped impressions 
with it, but the thought lives and lives inde- 
pendent of the impressions stamped on the 
newspaper. It may be well said that all of 
our thoughts are not recalled from the sen- 
sorium and given out second hand, but that a 
portion are original, new to us, and enter the 
brain for the first time and stamped on the 
sensory ganglion. Very true, and notwith- 
standing most of our thoughts original with 
us are what the eye sees or reads, or the ear 
hears, and through the nerves of special sen- 
sation receive the outward sensation and con- 
duct them to the sensorium upon which they 
are stamped, yet there arises in the minds 



53 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

of men thoughts which are new and original, 
and have never before been brought out. If 
not, what becomes of our boasted advance in 
civilization, of our progress in the arts and 
sciences ? "Where do we find in the history of 
the distant past, the thought that harnessed 
the electric spark, and drove it around the 
world? Where the thought that bottled up 
steam and electricity in iron bands, and sent 
them flying upon the rails, dragging across a 
continent coaches filled with human beings? 
And where the thought that discovered a 
process by which words wasted upon the air 
could be caught, and by their own weight and 
motion in the passage, be stamped upon a 
piece of metal, and ages after ground out and 
repeated in the same tone and the same words 
of the original, spoken years in the past? 
These thoughts could not have been previous- 
ly found upon the sensorium or the ganglia in 
the brain of any living man, nor could the ob- 
jects of these discoveries have been impressed 
on the ganglia, or nerves of special sensation, 
for the objects or discoveries had no exist- 
ence. 



54 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

Whether the spirit released from the body 
possesses the power to copy it, in any manner, 
from the dead and perishable sensorium, must 
remain an open question. 

We have found that although a large por- 
tion of our thoughts are old and stored in 
the grand sensorium, or more properly speak- 
ing impressed thereon, and continually 
brought out and re-impressed again, yet there 
are thoughts previously explained which are 
new and never before known to have entered 
the brain of man, and consequently must have 
sprung from some source outside of our ma- 
terial body ; and, although these thoughts and 
all other thoughts impressed upon the grand 
sensorium in the brain, mechanically stamped 
on matter, must perish at the death of the 
body, yet the source from which these 
thought-impressions were made is as much 
separated from the body, and must be as im- 
perishable and immortal, as is the light from 
Polaris or the North Star. The form of the 
Dipper in the constellation of the Great Bear 
in the heavens is impressed upon our retina, 
and the sensation is conveyed to the brain 



55 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

through the optic thalamus; but the source 
from which the light which was impressed up- 
on the brain emanated, is distinct and separate 
from our body, although the impression made 
upon the ganglia is materialized, and perishes 
with the body. The question now arises, 
are the thoughts here gained through study 
and experience continued in the life beyond? 
I can see no reason why the disembodied spirit 
should not have the same power to view its 
own accumulated thoughts stamped and reg- 
istered on the registering ganglion or grand 
sensorium of its dead form laid in the tomb as 
does the embodied spirit in reading the 
printed record in a book, as long as either 
form of matter remains entire and undecom- 
posed. And does it not seem probable that 
the accumulated thoughts gained in this world 
are continued beyond the decomposition of the 
body, remaining individualized by being in- 
corporated into our spiritual being as part and 
parcel of our individual self, which as I view 
it must be imperishable, and consequently 
without end? It is useless for me to specu- 
late in these papers upon the undeniable, un- 



56 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

questionable certainties of the forms of 
development of thought or spirit in the life 
beyond, for our consciousness or appreciation 
of every existing force, or form of thought, 
is weighed, judged and understood through 
matter, or our material senses. We may rea- 
son and philosophize upon the probabilities of 
the immortality of thought, but when we state 
that to be true and unquestionable which can- 
not be demonstrated by actual knowledge, by 
the aid of the senses, we simply expose our 
ignorance. Spirit cannot have a full concep- 
tion of spirit while connected with matter, nor 
can thought of itself, alone and independent 
from aught else. Philosophers have divided 
on the question as to the possibility of any one 
being able to realize his own existence here in 
the body ; that nothing can realize the exist- 
ence of anything only by standing outside or 
apart from it, and viewing it as separate and 
independent. How can thought realize or 
form a conception of itself any more than 
spirit can conceive spirit as independent from 
matter? We witness the results, the opera- 
tions, the manifestations of these forces 



57 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

through matter, and are consequently obliged 
to judge and weigh all things through mat- 
ter as all experience and knowledge upon the 
earth are gained through it, and can be gained 
through no other source during our stay in the 
present earthly form. Notwithstanding we 
are blessed with reason, and through that 
alone we must find immortality of thought, 
I am strong in the belief that we live always, 
as certain as there is a God in all, throughout 
the universe, and that thought is ever present 
and is part and parcel of our spiritual being 
through all time. As well might one climb 
to the summit of the loftiest mountain on the 
globe, and fly in a balloon forty miles into 
space to find the point where the atmosphere 
enveloping the earth begins, as to determine 
where thought commences in the animal crea- 
tion. It diminishes so gradually from man 
to the lower forms of animal life that it is im- 
possible to find its utmost limit; and not- 
withstanding that the articulates are appar- 
ently as low as we can trace anything worthy 
the name of thought, yet I do not hesitate to 
say that it is possible, ay, and quite probable, 



58 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

that every living thing that moves by its own 
volition possesses thought; for by what oth- 
er process can it choose its own direction of 
locomotion? Thought, we found in the early 
part of our investigations, was divided into 
two forms, reason and instinct. Reason we 
found was that quality of thought capable of 
being educated and developed, while instinct 
is a fixed, uneducated habit. Man, and in fact 
all the vertebrates, possesses both instinct 
and reason. We see this manifested in self- 
defence, in parental love, desire for gain, and 
many other qualities common to most animals. 
With many men, if not the majority of them, 
instinct is as prominently manifested as rea- 
son. They make no attempt to develop 
thought, but are satisfied with sufficient to eat 
and drink and leave the world no wiser than 
their fathers preceding them. For this great 
want of development in thought we all, I 
think, are responsible. The duty should be 
impressed upon the mind of every child born 
into the world to become better, wiser and 
farther advanced in intellectual thought than 
its parents ; if not, what becomes of progress 



59 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

and the development of the race? The end 
of most on earth appears to be satisfactorily- 
attained if they can come out of it whole, and 
leave the world no worse for their having 
been born. We ape too much the dead past. 
Our highest institutions of learning in town 
and city are wasting most of the hours allotted 
to students in deciphering, translating and 
memorizing the records of ancient philosoph- 
ers, orators and statesmen. If we should 
study Caesar less, and the present and future 
development of our race more, the world 
would be the better for it. If we are not 
farther advanced in thought than those old 
Grecian and Roman philosophers and ora- 
tors there is something wrong, and 
the past two thousand years have been 
a blank in the world's progress. As 
the earth is now supposed to be in its prime, 
and will soon be in its dotage, the same as all 
of us who sojourn on its surface, let us 
look to the present and elevate thought 
to a higher standard. The brain is ripe for 
it; it is fertile, and only awaits the seed, 
which, when planted, will quickly germinate 



60 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

and thrive if properly cultivated. More 
thought is the thing wanted in all depart- 
ments of life, in the mechanic and in the farm- 
er, in the physician and in the preacher, in the 
capitalist and in the laborer, in the statesman 
and in the philosopher, in the teacher and in 
the scholar, in the parent and in the child. 



61 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

CHAPTER II. 

The Missing Link. 

No one can reasonably pretend for a mo- 
ment that a law exists to-day whereby man 
can be produced or created from the earth a 
full-grown man from one hundred to a hun- 
dred and fifty pounds, or in the form of a 
helpless infant with no possible means of sus- 
taining life for years after its birth. As to 
the "first man," its parent must have been the 
highest order of animal life then existing; 
not necessarily an ape or a monkey, but pos- 
sibly and very probably a higher developed 
species, now extinct, exterminated by the pre- 
historic man, the latter far below the most 
inferior savage now in existence ; hence the 
parent of the "first man" was but a step be- 
low, the development being hardly percepti- 
ble ; like the child of to-day, through the com- 
bined organism of its father and mother it in- 
herits at times superior qualities, which places 



62 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

it ahead of the parent stock, and transmitting 
them to its progeny, its descendants obtain 
the start in the race of intellectual or super- 
ior life. 

The gap between man and the next order 
of animal life at present — say the ape — is very 
wide ; but the gap will continue to widen, so 
that ages in the future, the gap in the present 
era, if the facts could then be known, will 
seem very narrow compared to the very wide 
gap which must necessarily exist in that dis- 
tant epoch ; and why ? Glance at the animal 
life of America. Not many years since (but 
a few hundred) the wild beasts roamed from 
the cold regions to the equator; America 
teemed with them ; where are they to-day ? 
The march of civilization has driven them 
back; one species after another of the high- 
est order of beasts have been exterminated, 
so that to-day, where man or civilization ex- 
tends, nothing remains of the wild beasts, 
(except a few rare specimens of various 
species, roaming in the jungle or uninhabited 
forests of the country), to indicate the homes 
they once enjoyed, but their bones, and these 



63 



Neiv Propositions in Philosophy. 

through the aptness of the Yankee, are rap- 
idly gathered and converted into manufactur- 
ing and agricultural purposes — as, for in- 
stance, in the northern portion of America, 
where immense quantities of bones of the ele- 
phant are dug up, also remains of other ani- 
mals in the bone-beds of Carolina, all being 
utilized, and their original form destroyed, so 
that in the future not even the bones of beasts 
will remain to mark the pre-existence of the 
higher orders of animal life, except here 
and there a relic stored away in a mu- 
seum ; hence the gap will continue to 
widen, and other links will be missing. What 
is true of the extermination of wild beasts in 
America, as rapidly as man advances, is be- 
coming true in other parts of the globe. 
What of the lower races of men? Is not the 
gap widening constantly here? The living 
link between civilization and the pre-historic 
man is fast becoming the "missing link" by 
the extermination of the aborigines. Take 
North America, the native home of the poor 
Indian ; from the lakes to the gulf, from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, the European ad- 



64 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

varices ; he plants himself in their homes ; the 
Indian is doomed ; the work of extermination 
begins ; a few only remain to remind us of the 
original extensive tribes; back, back they 
have been driven to the farthest extent of our 
realm, and the only home that now awaits this 
small remnant of the aborigines of America 
is absorption by marriage in American fami- 
lies or the watery deep of the Pacific. The 
Australian savage is being also rapidly ex- 
terminated ; but few remain to indicate the 
existence of this very low race of men. They 
are the lowest living on the face of the earth. 
They can scarcely count four, and after their 
extermination, future ages will scarce be able 
to conceive of the existence of these low sav- 
ages, and unless their bones are carefully pre- 
served, and a record of their race kept, this 
link will be missing ; the gap between the low- 
est man and the next highest order of animals 
will continue to widen. The natives of New 
Zealand and Feejee Islands, the cannibals, are 
also being rapidly exterminated. A few years 
more and nothing but their bones or records, 
if preserved, will indicate the former exist- 



65 



Prop 5 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

ence of these wild savages or barbarians up- 
on our planet. If all is lost, another link is 
missing; and in early prehistoric times there 
were no printed records or bones pre- 
served, for petrified or fossilized human 
bones, as before mentioned, are very rarely if 
ever found. Hence the highest orders of 
beasts being rapidly exterminated in all coun- 
tries by the advancing tide of civilization, and 
the equally rapid extermination of the lowest 
races of men on the globe, will, in the course 
of 100,000 years distant, vastly widen the 
gap, and the "missing link" in that age will 
prove a far greater puzzle. We have found 
that the link connecting the lowest man and 
the next order of animals does not exist, for 
the gap, we learned, has widened, and is con- 
tinuing to widen, so that in the distant future 
the hour must come when every wild beast 
upon the face of the globe will be extermi- 
nated, and with equal certainty every savage 
barbarian and all the lower orders or races of 
men must pass away and become extinct. The 
gap will then become so wide between the 
bimana and quadrumana that unless their re- 



66 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

mains and records are preserved it will be 
impossible to form a conception of the pre- 
existence of these extinct forms. Hence it 
is fair to presume that further advanced types 
of quadrumana, that were nearer allied to man 
than now exists, became extinct and buried in 
the vast accummulation of ages. Paleonto- 
logy is in its infancy ; for the times are com- 
paratively recent since the discovery and clas- 
sification of fossil remains. Is it not equally 
probable that types or races of men much low- 
er than any of which we have record, and more 
closely allied to the quadrumana and quad- 
rupeds may have existed in the Miocene, and 
possibly in the Eocene Age? No rational 
thinker believes that all forms of animal life 
were created at the same time; for every 
geologist is aware that many forms became 
extinct ages before the appearance of mam- 
mals upon the earth; as for instance nine 
species of trilobites became extinct at the close 
of the primordial, or one of the early geolo- 
gical ages ; eight species at the close of the 
upper silurian ; and all became extinct before 
the close of the carboniferous, which was 



67 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

many millions of years prior to the age of 
mammals, which includes all animals that 
suckle their young-. What is true of the tri- 
lobites is true of many genera, and thousands 
of species appearing in one age became ex- 
tinct before the close of the following age. 



68 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

CHAPTER III. 

Electricity versus Gravitation. * 

The fact, of course, is borne in mind in con- 
sidering gravitation that the latter is not a 
property especially inherent in a body itself, 
say the sun, attracting to itself another body, 
but exists in the relation between two bodies, 
requiring two bodies at least to create the re- 
lation whereby gravitation is made possible. 
The earth in December is at its perihelion, or 
nearest to the sun; it then passes in June to 
its aphelion, or some three million of miles 
farther from the sun; the eccentricity of the 
earth's orbit or the difference between its 
nearest and greatest distance from the sun, is 
considerable, yet exceedingly small compared 
to the eccentricity of the paths or orbits of 
some comets, a few of which having the aph- 

* About 30 years ago, 1874, in the "Bos. Common- 
wealth," I was first to advance the hypothesis of re- 
pulsion, an electrical force, having something to do 
with the movements of bodies in the starry heavens.] 



69 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

elion of their orbits beyond the farthest planet 
in the solar system, while their perihelion 
passes within the orbit of Mercury, the planet 
nearest to the sun, a difference between the 
nearest and greatest distance from the sun of 
nearly three thousand millions of miles. 

If gravitation is the only force at work 
among the bodies in space, why does not the 
sun's immense mass attract the comet into 
itself, if as claimed, it has power sufficient to 
attract said comet into his realm from a dis- 
tance beyond even the farthest planet? Pre- 
cipitate from a tower, or other high eminence, 
a huge block of stone; it falls to the earth, 
but the latter meets it just in proportion to the 
size and weight of the earth to that of the 
stone ; and the only reason that the earth does 
not fall upon the stone is because the former 
is so much larger than the latter. If how- 
ever, the stone were equal in size to the earth, 
they would meet just half way — both falling 
equal distances toward each other ; if, furth- 
er, the stone were proportionally larger than 
the earth, the latter would fall upon the stone, 
the power of attraction being greater in the 



70 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

latter than in the former ; and thus the laws 
of gravitation are obeyed. The moon, al- 
though an attendant to the earth, and revolv- 
ing regularly around it, attracts the earth to 
itself, however near its proximity to our 
globe; the sun although ninety-two millions 
of miles distant from it, while the earth is 
only 239,000 miles therefrom, the solar mass 
being of such immense size, some 355,000 times 
larger than the earth, its attraction, although 
at such vast greater distance, governs and con- 
trols the moon in its movements as much, and 
some astronomers think more, than does the 
earth, even in its comparative near proximity 
to it. It is also well-known among astrono- 
mers that the planet Jupiter, which is some 
eleven hundred times larger in volume than 
the earth, exercises greater control over its 
moons than the earth possesses over its at- 
tendant, and why? Simply that Jupiter is 
farther removed from the sun's attraction, be- 
ing nearly five hundred millions miles there- 
from, while the earth is but ninety-two and 
one-half millions ; and furthermore Jupiter is 
so immensely large, the giant planet of the 



71 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

solar system, he holds absolute sway over 
matter in his realm, embracing millions and 
millions of miles in space about him ; but ow- 
ing to the comparatively small dimensions of 
the earth and its nearness to the sun, our 
planet is obliged to succomb to the attraction 
or control of the mammoth solar mass, and be 
satisfied with the very small and narrow realm 
around it, over which it exercises but a partial 
control. Saturn, still farther removed from 
the sun than Jupiter, and nearly as large as 
the latter, is less subject to the control or at- 
traction of the sun, and of course is absolute 
ruler over a wider extent of space than Ju- 
piter, although both are more or less tributary 
to the immensely greater body, the sun, 
around which they revolve. The attraction 
of the sun over matter in its realm, or solar 
system is very well manifested in the velocity 
of the planets around his mass. Mercury, 
the nearest planet to the sun, moves around 
him with the astounding rapidity of 109,757 
miles per hour, and Neptune, the farthest 
planet from the sun, only 6,000 or 8,000 miles 
per hour. The influence of the sun over the 



72 



Nezv Propositions in Philosophy. 

most distant planet, it must be perceived, is 
very slight in comparison to the amount ex- 
erted over the nearer planets, as seen in the 
rapidity of their motion in their several or- 
bits. 

The first law discovered by Kepler, "the ra- 
dius vector of a planet describes equal areas 
in equal times," claims that a planet in passing 
from its aphelion to its perihelion, or nearest 
distance to the sun, the centrifugal assists the 
centripetal force and its velocity is quickened, 
while in its return passage from its perihelion 
to its aphelion, the farthest from the sun, the 
centripetal opposes the centrifugal force and 
consequently causes the planet to move slower. 
Let us examine this law and ascertain wheth- 
er both of these phenomena are due to gravi- 
tation, and whether, after all, gravitation ex- 
plains all the motion of bodies in the Solar 
system. 

The centrifugal and centripetal forces we 
will illustrate by the movements of a horse 
trained by his master in the circus ring; he is 
inclined to run in a tangent direction, or in a 
straight line, away from his master, but the 



73 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

long and tight rein checks his tangentical or 
straight course and he is obliged to obey part- 
ially the centripetal force which is pulling 
him towards the master; or in other words, 
the master pulling one way and the horse the 
opposite, while in motion a mean between the 
two forces or directions is the result, and the 
horse is obliged to travel in a circular path or 
orbit around the master, who holds him in 
check. But suppose the centrifugal force, 
or the horse gets advantage of the centripetal, 
or the master holding him in check ; the re- 
sult is obvious that the horse would travel 
more in a tangent direction. Instead of his 
path continuing in a circle, it would be para- 
bolic or hyperbolic, and the farther the horse 
is removed from his master, though held in 
some check by the long rein, the less control 
or attraction (through the rein) will the mas- 
ter exercise over him, and ultimately it will 
be impossible to pull him back again, while the 
force of attraction at the center remains the 
same, or is not increased. Apply this illus- 
tration to a comet travelling from the sun, 
whose centrifugal force has gained advantage 



74 



Nezv Propositions in Philosophy. 

over the centripetal and is travelling in a tan- 
gent direction from the center of attraction, as 
in the case of the reined horse from his mas- 
ter, if gravitation is the sole law that explains 
its movements, how is it possible for the 
comet when passing so far away from the 
center of attraction with gravitation lessening 
in force in inverse ratio to the square of the 
distance to return towards the sun ? 

Again, if the master, or the centripetal 
force, proved to be the stronger, the horse, 
when travelling in a circle as first described, 
would be drawn towards the master, and the 
nearer the horse is drawn to the center of at- 
traction (the master) the less will be the re- 
sisting force of the former, and the greater 
the control of the latter over him, until at last 
the horse is narrowed into direct contact with 
him ; and if the source of attraction or force 
instead of being a man, was the ocean, the 
horse would fall in and be absorbed by the 
ocean mass. Now apply this illustration to a 
comet whose centripetal force has gained the 
advantage over the centrifugal, and is being 
drawn towards the center of attraction, the 



75 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

sun, as in the case of the reined horse to his 
master or the ocean, and drawn so near by the 
power of the sun's attraction, as has been ob- 
served by some astronomers, that it has just 
barely escaped touching the sun's mass in 
passing around it; if gravitation in this in- 
stance is the only law that governs its move- 
ments, how is it possible for the comet when 
drawn by the sun's immense attraction almost 
into its enormous mass to entirely es- 
cape being drawn into the sun's mass 
and absorbed, as in the instance of the 
horse into the ocean mass just mentioned? 
We find, however, instead of this result, that 
the comet at this near proximity is repelled 
with an immense force away from the sun 
into space with great velocity, passing in some 
instances beyond the farthest planet in the 
solar system. This force is certainly not 
one of attraction or gravitation, but one dia- 
metrically opposite, and what this force is 
concerns our present inquiry. It has been 
said and justly, that the cause of every unex- 
plained phenomenon is generally ascribed to 
electricity, but I do not know as one must 



/6 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

necessarily be forever debarred from using 
this immense and thoroughly universal force 
in the explanation of certain phenomena be- 
cause some speculative enthusiasts use it in 
common in the explanation of all their ideal 
schemes. Sufficient is it to know that cer- 
tain facts exist ; that a comet in approaching 
and nearing the sun, with its tail following 
it, the latter ninety millions of miles in length, 
thinner or less condensed than the head, was 
immediately repelled by the sun and switched 
around in the opposite direction, and as the 
comet rounded it and receded therefrom, the 
tail, instead of following the comet as when 
approaching the sun, preceded it. To what 
is this repulsive action in the sun due? We 
know very well that it is due to electricity, as 
no other force in nature possesses this repul- 
siveness to any noticeable extent. Take for 
example the great comet of 1843, whose pere- 
helion was so near the sun that it was feared it 
would fall into it, but it did not and why ? be- 
cause it could not. In its approach to the 
sun it became so charged with electricity, the 
sun lost its power of attraction, gravitation 



77 



Nezv Propositions in Philosophy. 

had no longer any influence upon it, the law 
of repulsion began to operate, the centrifugal 
force began to control it, and the centripetal 
had lost its power, and the comet passed off 
and away from it in a tangent, as rapidly as 
during its approach. This is precisely what 
we should expect it would do, if electricity 
exercised any control over it. Take Enche's 
comet, notwithstanding its orbit was ap- 
proaching nearer the sun at each revolution 
for several years, it suddenly ceased its near- 
er approach and why ? It became over-charged 
with electricity, and was accordingly re- 
pulsed, and probably never again will it short- 
en to any great extent its orbit. If it should 
it will never fall into the sun as it was once 
feared, for it cannot, as it is undoubtedly 
charged with sufficient electricity to keep it at 
a proper distance, and if it should ever re- 
volve too near, it will become so much over- 
charged with electricity, the repulsive force 
will become a potent influence, and will send 
it farther into space than it has ever attained, 
and with greater rapidity. If this is true of 
comets and planets, why not true of the stars, 



78 



Neiv Propositions in Philosophy. 

the sun and all sizeable bodies in space? The 
recent discoveries of Marconi of the power 
of electricity, in high altitudes, away from 
the earth, where an electric current can be 
more easily controlled and be stronger than 
upon or near the earth, is a prominent factor 
in the solution of this problem. He has 

found that an electric current can be sent from 
an electrical plate in the rarefied air regions 
to another plate in the distance without the 
assistance of any wire to transmit it. If then 
it is found that electricity has greater power 
in high altitudes where the air is more rare- 
fied, is it not possible, aye, and I might say 
probable, that electrical currents continue to 
exercise the largest control in the interplane- 
tary space, and through all space. Light, 
heat, and electricity may proceed from the 
same force, possibly are one and the same 
force. Electricity travels with nearly the 
same speed as light, some one hundred eighty 
thousand miles to two hundred thousand miles 
a second. Light is transmitted by wave mo- 
tion from a distant star, or from the tallow 
candle in the confines of your room, so is elec- 



79 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

tricity, and so is heat, as one can easily observe 
on a hot summer's day as it rises in trembling 
waves from the heated, sandy plain. Far be 
it from me to say that gravitation is not a 
great force in the universe, the greatest, but 
it exists perhaps in a larger sense under the 
name of electricity, which not only has the 
power of attraction, but carries with it repul- 
sion ; a positive and negative influence. Pres- 
ent to the prime conductor of an electrical 
plate machine some pith balls, as I have done 
in my laboratory, they are at first 
attracted, and when sufficiently charged with 
positive electricity they are repelled, the law 
of electrical force being that a body possess- 
ing less than the average amount of electricity, 
or, properly speaking, is negatively electrified, 
when it comes in contact, or nearly so, with a 
body possessing an excess of electric- 
ity in the positive passes into the lesser 
electrified body, the negative, until the latter 
receives the excess from the positive, or the 
equilibrium between the two is restored, and 
both become equally electrified ; and when this 
equality takes place, a repulsion to each occurs, 



80 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

as is manifested by the pith balls when coming 
in contact with the prime conductor, it is soon 
expelled by becoming positively electrified. 
The sun contains unquestionably an enormous 
amount of electricity; the earth it is well 
known, is largely charged with it, as il- 
lustrated by the telegraph. Early in tele- 
graphy a "line" was established consisting 
of two wires, a thousand miles, more 
or less, in length ; one wire from the battery 
to its destination, and another what is called 
a return wire, to make a circuit or connections 
complete. But it was at length ascertained 
that the Earth possessed an immense amount 
of electricity, and by sinking a copper plate at 
both ends of the line in the Earth it was 
thought the Earth might answer for the re- 
turn wire, and thus the expense of one wire 
for thousands of miles be saved. The experi- 
ment proved successful, and but one wire is 
now used in most telegraph lines in this coun- 
try, thus demonstrating that the Earth is a 
great storehouse of electricity. Take for ex- 
ample a "thunder cloud," so-called, or a couple 
of them, one is more charged with electricity 



Prop 6 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

than the other ; the one positively or over- 
charged, the other with less electricity, is neg- 
ative, and as nature always seeks to restore 
its equilibrium, the positive cloud empties its 
surplus of electrical force into the negative 
and the equilibrium is restored. If the Earth 
is more charged with electricity than the 
clouds, as is sometimes the case, the electrical 
current instead of passing from the cloud to 
the Earth, will pass from the Earth up to the 
cloud ; but I should expect under the same 
circumstances that if one cloud was very 
much larger than the other, the small cloud, 
not being big and dense enough to receive all 
the surplus energy of the positive cloud, would 
become overcharged, and the repulsive energy 
would at once begin to work and move it farth- 
er away out of the influence of the mammoth 
cloud. And the same phenomena I should 
ascribe to the positive influence of the sun 
over such light bodies as comets or other 
light and smaller bodies as the planets, in 
interplanetary spaces. Now if the Earth, a 
small speck in comparison to the great sun 
(some 1,400,000 times in volume, and 355,000 



82 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

in mass larger) contains so great a store of 
electricity, (and through spectrum analysis 
the sun has been found to contain nearly the 
same elements as the Earth) what may we ex- 
pect of this great solar mass, if the quantity 
increases in proportion to the increase of size? 
and also bearing in mind that the intensely 
heated or thermal condition there would render 
it a greater storehouse of this force, in propor- 
tion to its size, than the Earth. Another evi- 
dence demonstrates the fact that the Sun is a 
great storehouse of electricity. Variations of 
the magnetic needle on the Earth have been re- 
corded. Some years the variations are very 
great, and some years much smaller ; a record 
also of the occurrence of the spots on the Sun 
has been kept, and the magnitude of the phe- 
nomenon is found to correspond in both in- 
stances. Magnetism and electricity in many 
respects are quite similar. In keeping a rec- 
ord of the appearance of the aurora borealis 
it was ascertained that the maximum and mini- 
mum of intensity for the same number of years 
corresponded in a remarkable degree to the 
solar spots and variations of the needle, and the 



83 



Nezv Propositions in Philosophy. 

cause of the aurora is conceded by most 
physicists to be due to electricity ; hence as the 
solar spots and the aurora borealis appear 
about the same time, and with equal intensity, 
it is fair to presume that the solar spots are 
largely due to electricity, or electrical action 
or disturbances in the Sun's own mass. We 
know that there are tremendous disturbances 
and explosions in, or on the Sun, that enor- 
mous quantities of gaseous matter (which has 
been ascertained constituted the Sun's mass) 
are ejected therefrom, and extending from the 
Sun's limb or edge, hundreds of thousands of 
miles, and traveling in the shape of clouds 
around the Sun at the immense velocity of two 
hundred and seventy miles per second, and if 
it receives a repulsive impulse or attains a 
velocity over these figures, which at times is 
the case, the mass will pass beyond the control 
of the Sun and never return. 

Apply this electrical force to the Comet. It 
approaches the Sun by force of gravitation, as 
the Comet nears the solar mass, it being neg- 
atively electrified, it receives a portion of the 
excess of electricity from the Sun, sufficient to 



84 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

keep it traveling- around, and from falling- into 
the solar mass, and when it becomes thoroughly- 
charged with positive electricity it is expelled 
with great force into space in a tangentical di- 
rection, and if the repulsive force given it is 
excessively great it will describe a parabolic or 
hyperbolic path, and perhaps not return to 
the region of the Sun or even the Solar System 
again, for thousands of years ; if the re- 
pulsive force given it is not so great it 
will describe an elliptical path, and as in some 
instances, not pass beyond the planet of 
Jupiter, or with others, as Halley's Comet, will 
pass but little beyond the farthest planet, Nep- 
tune, and when the repulsive force received is 
expended, the Sun's attraction exercises its 
control over the Comet and draws it again in 
the direction of the Solar Mass, to be again 
positively charged with electricity, as it cir- 
cuits around the Sun, and repelled as 
before into space, describing regularly an 
elliptical orbit around his mass. What is true 
of Comets, must be true of planets, for all of 
them are attracted more or less towards the 
Sun in the orbital motions, and also repelled 



85 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

with equal force. If very small cosmical 
bodies are attracted and fall into the Sun's 
mass, being positively charged, they are im- 
mediately expelled, and the process continued. 
Sufficient has been observed to substantiate 
the proposition, that electricity in its positive 
and negative properties, (attractive and repul- 
sive,) has a greater influence in the movements 
of bodies in the starry heavens than gravita- 
tion, which is solely an attractive force and 
does not possess the properties of replusion. 



86 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Earth's Extension. 

Our uninstructed senses fail to perceive 
many important changes in progress upon the 
Earth's surface and in space. If a body set in 
motion meets with resistence, whether in the 
form of a solid, liquid, or ether, its apparent 
motion ultimately ceases and a loss in weight 
results, for when a body meets another, how- 
ever light or ethereal the latter may be, friction 
will ensue, and where there is friction there 
waste commences and the original motion ap- 
parently ceases. What is the condition of the 
interplanetary or stellar space? With the fin- 
est instrument yet made, a perfect vacuum has 
not been produced upon our planet. Space or 
a portion of space, absolutely empty, is an im- 
possibility, as impossible as the existence of a 
bounded or limited universe. All space must 
be filled with something and that something in 
the interstellar space we call ether, for want of 



87 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

a better name. What is this ethereal sub- 
stance pervading the universe? We claim 
that it is a part and parcel of all the heavenly- 
bodies in space, the extension of the planets, 
suns, comets, meteors, nebula, etc., etc. The 
Earth during its early formation is estimated 
to have been some 1,900 times larger than at 
present, this was when in a gaseous condition ; 
its dimensions, now as recorded, is about 
25,000 miles in circumference and 8,000 miles 
in diameter, but this can be but a part of all 
that constitutes the make-up of our planet. 
The atmosphere surrounding the solid is none 
the less part and parcel of our globe, however 
light its constituents. How long could life be 
sustained without the air we breathe; it is just 
as essential as water, which is not a solid, yet 
covering three-quarters of the solid earth, and 
the atmosphere is more or less filled with 
water, in the form of vapor. Forty-five miles 
are given in text books as the height or limit 
of this gaseous envelope and by mathematical 
estimates this at first thought may appear cor- 
rect, but to make an arbitrary line and within 
which confine the atmosphere, stating that to 



88 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

this point the latter extends and no farther, 
beyond which is empty space, is an absurdity. 
Ascend to the summit of Mt. Blanc, and we 
find the density of the atmosphere at that 
height lessened considerably as compared to 
that of the valley below, so rarefied or thin, 
that it becomes quite a task to live in that 
region any length of time, but is the atmos- 
phere at this height any less an atmosphere be- 
cause of its increased thinness or rarity? and 
when we reach 45 miles in space, or 5,000, is 
the substance therein contained any less a por- 
tion of the globe as its atmosphere, because at 
that great distance from the solid upon which 
we move, it becomes so rarefied that our esti- 
mates and comprehension fail to recognize the 
fact? As well might the anatomist centuries 
ago have doubted the geologist who should 
dare predict that the time would come when in 
a single grain of slate 187 million of fossil 
skeletons would be found complete in all their 
parts. The Universe is one entire mass of 
matter, portions are condensing, solidifying 
and crystallizing into and forming worlds, and 
in turn are wasting, decomposing, decaying 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

and returning to its original nebula or ethereal 
state. 

What is the cause of the decay or decomposi- 
tion of stars or worlds? In the first place 
Suns are luminous bodies, constantly giving 
out heat and light. When a luminous body 
upon our planet gives off heat and light we 
know that something is expended and in the 
course of time that portion giving off said heat 
and light will be consumed or condensed, solid- 
ify and become a solid; can we expect any- 
thing less of the suns? To be sure, as J. P. 
Mayer suggests there may be a remunerative 
agency to compensate the Sun for the 
immense expenditure of its mass into space, to 
produce the amount of heat the Earth alone 
receives. Be this as it may, we have found 
that if all parts of the Sun expend an equal 
amount of heat and light, the time will come 
when his original mass will be cooled and 
solidify. The photosphere and chromosphere ; 
a gaseous envelope, which is acknowledged to 
be a part and parcel of the Sun, extends far 
beyond his denser nucleus mass, the whole 
extending hundreds of thousands of miles be- 



90 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

yond the Sun's nucleus. The time will come 
when lenses will be made with sufficient 
power to trace the atmosphere of the Sun, 
composed of emanations from his mass, not 
only hundreds of thousands of miles as at pres- 
ent discovered, but millions of miles. During 
the progress of the eclipses, an atmosphere or 
emanations were found to exist beyond the 
chromosphere. What I have said in relation 
to our Sun, the Earth, and their atmospheres 
or extensions into space, applies to all the suns 
and planets in the Universe. The so-called 
ether filling the interplanetary and interstellar 
space throughout the Universe, is undoubtedly 
fed by the constant expenditure and emanations 
from the numberless suns, burning and seeth- 
ing as a fiery lake. If it is true as previously 
stated, that the Earth's atmosphere extends in- 
to space thousands of miles, its thinness or 
rarity exceeding our mathematical estimates 
and comprehension, it is probable that the same 
is true of all other planets in space. Nature 
abhors a vacuum, and that a defined limit to 
our planet or other planets or suns exists, be- 
yond which is empty space, devoid of any sub- 



9i 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

stance, ethereal or otherwise, is a theory that 
cannot be substantiated. 



92 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

CHAPTER V. 

The Philosophy of Immortality. 

Is there life beyond the grave, or is there 
not? That is the question and there's the 
rub ! For thousands of years this question 
has been asked, and should the world exist five 
hundred thousand more, it will still continue to 
be questioned as time or eternity upon the 
planet will never settle this problem in the 
minds of all, for while spirit and matter remain 
two distinct, uncombined elements, with our 
senses totally incompetent in themselves to an- 
alyze and detect spirit which is an untangible 
an imponderable force ; the question will al- 
ways be an open one as it is only through our 
material senses that all solid and positive facts 
are determined and settled. If the thinker, 
however, outsteps the bounds of material 
knowledge and experiences, into the realm of 
thought and reason and views the spirit, the 
beyond, the ultimate in the light of philosophy 



93 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

and common sense, his faith will be founded 
upon a rock. In my travels nothing surprised 
me more in conversing with the masses than 
the incredulity, the increasing unbelief, the 
general doubt of an existence beyond the 
grave; and the alarming increase is not con- 
fined to a scattered few, but found among all 
classes, and not detected by the general ob- 
server, but discovered in debates and close 
questionings. It would not surprise me could 
the people scattered over our continent be 
carefully questioned as to whether they enter- 
tained any doubts concerning a continued in- 
dividual existence beyond the grave, the hon- 
est reply of one half would be in the affirma- 
tive. We have relied too much upon author- 
ity, and less upon our common sense and rea- 
son, and when we have grown large and broad 
enough to realize the use of the powers God 
has given us, and through which alone we are 
placed pre-eminently above the entire animal 
kingdom, we shall have larger comprehension 
and look as never before into the great future 
and life eternal. What is matter? "It is the 
substance," in the words of Webster, "of which 



94 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

all bodies are constituted, or that which is 
visible or tangible." In illustration take a lo- 
comotive on the railroad track attached to pas- 
senger cars, instruct it to move, when would 
you reach New York by the train if the loco- 
motive was left to itself to start? No, you 
say, there must be force applied to it to propel 
it. Who is to apply this? You say man. 
Suppose we take one just asleep in death and 
place him on the locomotive with full instruc- 
tions to run the machine. Your request is 
complied with. A man is placed on the en- 
gine, but does it move ? Why not ? All the 
conditions dependent upon matter are satisfied. 
Can you call to mind any form of matter that 
will in itself meet the case and send the loco- 
motive on its mission to the great metropolis ? 
Is there any one on our planet ingenious 
enough to so compound or unite matter in any 
form or shape to meet the desired end? 
None ? But if all there is to man, is the mat- 
ter of which his body is composed, how do you 
account for this strange anomaly ? It is some- 
thing outside of matter, is it? What is it? 
What is this something? Is it force? Steam 



95 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

is generated and applied to the engine, and 
thus through the forces of heat and motion the 
locomotive moves, but did these forces in 
themselves, without help or assistance, alone 
and in their own power move it? Is there 
not something behind these forces which sets 
them in operation? Who generated and ap- 
plied the steam ? Man ? What the material 
man ? The dead man whose body is all there 
is of him ? We have found then, that there is 
something behind matter ; something behind 
the force itself that moves it. Man contains 
it. It is not his body as we have proven. It 
is no known force as we have demonstrated, 
but something behind them both ; it is life or 
spirit, both one and the same thing. 

Galvani, the discoverer of Galvanic electric- 
ity in a work published at Bologne in 1791 for 
the Institute of Sciences says, he was "dissect- 
ing a frog on a table whereon stood an electri- 
cal machine, when the limbs suddenly became 
convulsed by one of his pupils touching the 
crural nerve with a dissecting knife." "Gal- 
vani," says Bakewell. "entertained the opinion 
that muscular action is attributable to electric- 



96 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

ity, and looked on this phenomenon as a con- 
firmation of that opinion, and pursued the en- 
quiry with great zeal. He attached the leg's 
of frogs to a pointed conductor fixed at the 
top of the house, and found that they are vio- 
lently convulsed by every flash of lightning. 
Similar effects, though not so strong, were 
also brought about by atmospherical electric- 
ity, when there was no thunder storm. As 
this effect was produced without any apparent 
external excitement of the electric fluid, Gal- 
vani inferred in accordance with his precon- 
ceived hypothesis, that the muscular contrac- 
tion was caused by animal electricity. Phy- 
siologists eagerly seized hold of this assigned 
cause of vital energy, and abandoned the 
agency of the nervous fluid for that of elec- 
tricity. 

Volta, a wiser man and far more eminent in 
science, the true discoverer of Voltaic elec- 
tricity now applied throughout the world, 
annihilated the theory that the exciting 
cause resided in the animal fibres, and 
contended that the muscular contractions 
produced when the muscle and the 



97 



Prop 7 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

nerve were connected by a metal, arose from 
the contact of the metal itself, and was entirely 
independent of animal electricity. In proof 
of this he instanced the peculiar sensation oc- 
casioned by the contact of a piece of silver 
with a piece of lead or zinc, when both are 
placed upon the tongue. What a blessing it 
would have been if Galvani could have suc- 
ceeded in bringing to life men lying in their 
graves by the application of electricity to their 
limbs, but alas it requires something beyond 
the force of electricity to produce the emotions 
and movements which man, aye, a live man 
exhibits. Dr. Carpenter, the distinguished 
English scientist, advanced the theory that heat 
is the life, the vital force that animates our be- 
ing and all matter; but with like consistency 
he might claim the same pre-eminence for oxy- 
gen, for without the presence of the latter, seed 
could not germinate, nor the egg develop into 
life. Suppose we search for the most ingen- 
ious fellow in the land, and instruct him to 
make of clay the form of a man, perfect with- 
in and without, fill its stomach with food, then 
the body with electricity or heat, will it walk, 



98 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

talk and think? Is there any force under the 
control of man that can be put into action 
which will produce the results mentioned? 
Faber, the ingenious Frenchman, constructed a 
voice automaton, whereby the instrument could 
be made to talk, to articulate with as much dis- 
tinctness as with many men who speak our 
language. In its rude state the form presented 
no similarity to man, but when the bust was 
placed over the instrument, and made to artic- 
ulate the imitation was complete, and to one 
who did not see the power behind it, it ap- 
peared life-like. The instrument was perfect, 
the voice produced wonderfully good, but it 
did not talk of its own volition, there was a 
power behind it, not the fingers that played 
upon the keys which caused the varied sounds 
proceeding from the mouth of the automaton 
in imitation of the human voice, but some- 
thing beyond. 

It is that which moves your fingers and 
mine. It is the life, the spirit that prompts the 
movement. 

What is it that talks in you and me and 
gives expression to our countenances? will 

LLoF&J 

99 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

electricity do it ? will heat, motion, light, chem- 
ical affinity, magnetism or any other force 
known to man produce it? What is it that 
sparkles the eye and gives emotion to our 
whole being? Something independent of the 
forces, independent of matter, and being inde- 
pendent it cannot be deposited with my body in 
the grave; it is life, spirit, not tangible or 
ponderable, but too ethereal to be entombed. 
Denton cites some illustrative facts, which are 
to the point. "Dr. Atkinson says, 'I had once 
a very remarkable patient, who, with eyes 
closed,could easily read any writing I gave 
her. She read it from the top of her head, or 
when placed in her hand, or from any part 
of her body ; and it was to be noticed in this 
case, that the more tightly you pressed upon 
her eyes the more clearly she could see.' " 

Here is an instance where a person was not 
obliged to use the material eye to read ; how 
soon the eye loses its transparency, its bril- 
liancy after life, the spirit has left it, but behind 
the material eye, or within it, is the spiritual, 
and in the lady mentioned, the spiritual was 
very largely developed, so large that it enabled 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

her to see and read without the use of the lens 
of the material eye. 

The crystaline lens of the eye is sim- 
ply an instrument for the spiritual eye 
to look through. These lens to the aged are 
nearly useless and they are compelled to go to 
the opticians and purchase other eyes or lens 
for the spiritual eye to see. To 

prove that the matter read by the lady 
with her eyes closed was not due to any 
familiarity with the writing I will cite another 
instance which he gives : "Dr. Colby, of Stan- 
stead, Canada, informed him that he had a 
patient who read for him a paper, just taken 
from the press, with her eyes bandaged, and a 
tea tray between her eyes and the paper." 
Here was reading matter entirely new to her, 
just received from the printing press and was 
new to everybody. What is it that enabled her 
to see, or read without the use of even her 
material eyes? Matter? Force? Is it that 
power, that something which you and I and all 
possess ; life, spirit, but more developed in her 
in this direction, the eye, the spiritual eye, than 
in most of us. Again, during sleep our bodies 



IOI 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

are apparently in perfect rest, but in our 
dreams, the mind, the thought, the spirit is 
active. Says Dr. Hammond : "During sleep, 
the brain is in a comparatively bloodless con- 
dition, and the blood in the encephalic vessels 
is not only diminished in quantity, but moves 
with diminished force." Denton says, "If the 
brain is the agent concerned in clairvoyant and 
clairandient phenomena (its power being very 
much reduced by sleep) we should naturally 
expect it would decrease or destroy its ability 
in this direction; but the very opposite seems 
to be the case, for many who possess no clair- 
voyant power in the waking condition have in 
their sleep, a remarkable development of it." 
Dr. Carpenter relates, that "Condorceet saw in 
his dreams the final steps of a difficult calcula- 
tion which had puzzled him during the day," 
and Candillac states that when engaged with 
his course of study he frequently developed and 
finished a subject in his dreams which he had 
broken off before retiring to rest. "Can it be," 
lie says, "the brain, the material brain that does 
this in sleep, when it has been unable to accom- 
plish it in the waking state? We might as 



102 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

well suppose a man could run eight miles an 
hour with his feet shackled, while he could only 
run four when they were free." Denton again 
cites Lydia Marcia Child, the distinguished 
author and reformer, who published the fol- 
lowing statement regarding her deceased 
friend, Henrietta Sargent. "One morning, 
she spoke of not feeling as well as usual but 
it was regarded by herself and others as merely 
a slight deviation from her customary good 
health. But in the course of the day she sud- 
denly fainted away. As the usual restoratives 
produced no effect, the family physician was 
summoned. No better success attended his 
efforts. The breath appeared to be entirely 
suspended, and the limbs remained rigid and 
cold. Her daughters feared she must be dead ; 
and the doctor began to be doubtful whether 
animation would ever be restored. How long 
she continued in this state I do not remember. 
But while they were watching her with ever- 
deepening anxiety she gasped feebly and after 
a while opened her eyes. When she had com- 
pletely recovered, she told her daughters she 
had been standing by them all the time, looking 



103 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

upon her "lifeless body, and seeing all they did 
to resuscitate it, and she astonished them by 
repeating- the minutest details of all that had 
been said or done by them and the doctor dur- 
ing her prolonged state of utter insensibility." 
It is then evident that the spirit acts independ- 
antly of the living body at times, what then 
prevents its living after the final separation for 
all time? If it is so active when the body at 
night is asleep, and dead as it were to all the 
world about it, what is there to prevent the 
spirit being active when the body is completely 
dead and laid separately aside? 

What is it in the mesmeric operator that 
compels another to do his bidding? Take the 
life principle or spirit away from the man ; the 
body would exhibit poor results in this direc- 
tion. 

It is the will, the spirit in the body of the 
mesmerizer that is "en rapport" with the spirit 
in the body of his subject that wills him to do 
as he pleases, the one is positively charged 
with a strong spirit, the other negatively with 
a weaker spirit. Dr. Foissac magnetized Paul 
Villagrand at a distance of three hundred 



104 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

miles. It is said of him, the doctor gave a 
note to his father which he desired him to hand 
to Paul at half past 5 P. M. It read thus : "I 
am magnetizing you at this moment; I will 
awake you when you have had a quarter of an 
hour's sleep." But the father to make the 
experiment decisive, never gave the letter to 
his son. Nevertheless at ten minutes before 
six, Paul being in the midst of his family, 
experienced a sensation of heat, and consider- 
able uneasiness. His clothing was wet 
through with perspiration ; he wished to retire 
to his room ; but they detained him. In a few 
minutes he was entranced. In this state, he 
astonished the persons present by reading with 
his eyes shut several lines of a book taken at 
hazard from the library, and by telling the 
hour upon a watch they held to him. He 
awoke in a quarter of an hour. Here was a 
clear case of a spirit acting upon spirit in the 
body, (not matter upon matter) at the great 
distance of 300 miles from each other. The 
question now arises whether this life, force or 
spirit manifested in different bodies is suffi- 
ciently individualized to enable it to preserve 



105 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

its identity throughout eternity; or in other 
words will- each of us live and continue our 
personality through eternity individualized in 
one person as upon the Earth, an individual 
entity, a spiritual body dispossessed of matter, 
or is it swallowed up in a Universal life or 
spirit mass pervading the Universe? Advo- 
cates of the latter notion tell us that as a drop 
of water falls into the ocean, mingles and is 
lost in the great liquid mass, its individuality 
and identity ceases, as does the life or spirit 
departing from the body pass into the great 
universal life or spirit mass, and its individual- 
ity is forever lost. Let us see if this illustra- 
tion holds good. Water is made up of two 
elements, oxygen and hydrogen, and the small- 
est particle into which a drop can be divided 
is a molecule. Picture in the mind the small- 
est particle of water imaginable and divide it 
into a million times, and it is not yet reduced to 
the size of a molecule. Each molecule, the 
base of all matter wherever found, and in what- 
ever shape or form, is always unalterable, and 
ever retains its individuality. 

Oxygen, we obtain from water, air and 



1 06 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

very many different compounds, also from 
rocks through the geological ages, from the 
Tertiary to the Silurian or the Azoic; and if 
through this vast extent of time, millions and 
millions of years, any change was effected in 
its properties the specimens would manifest it, 
but no change is manifested. Hydrogen, the 
other component part in a drop of water is 
also procured from coal, water, etc. Two 
litres of any specimen of hydrogen will com- 
bine with one litre precisely of any specimen of 
oxygen, and will form two litres of the vapor 
of water. If by lying in rocks through all the 
geological epochs of the past, passing through 
the volcanic and heat changes to which the 
rock is subject; or in space dashing along as 
comets, and meteors of which it is part and 
parcel, if any change or modification in the 
molecules had occurred, these relations of 
oxygen and hydrogen above mentioned would 
no longer exist, but the same proportion of 
combination between these two elements exists 
to-day as millions of years ago, showing that 
the individuality or identity of the molecule of 
oxygen or hydrogen, composing the drop of 



107 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

water is preserved through all time. Now if 
the lowest condition to which matter can be 
reduced, the atom or molecule (the former be- 
ing the smallest division of a single element, 
and the latter the minutest division of a com- 
pound) preserves its individuality under all 
conditions and through all time, pervading all 
space upon the Earth, whether in the solid, 
liquid or gaseous form, is it any less probable 
that the universal life or spirit force per- 
vading the universe, divided and dwelling 
in innumerable, individual forms, will pre- 
serve its identity through whatever changes 
the mass of matter with which it is con- 
nected may pass through? To be sure the 
material body of a man dies, the form is not 
preserved or individualized, but the atoms or 
molecules of which it is made up remain the 
same, retaining their constant individual form 
and shape ; and the life or spirit which builds 
them up and holds them together in the form 
of man, when it loosens its hold and escapes, 
can it be any less individualized than the atoms 
or molecules which it partially controls? An 
army, for example, is made up of individuals, 



1 08 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

they move collectively as one body. Take the 
"Army of the Potomac" in the Cival war of 
i86i-'65, they moved in one solid phalanx, 
united in one single purpose and imbued with 
one and the same spirit of love and defence 
of their country. At the close of the war this 
body or army decomposes, so to speak, falls 
to pieces, or scatters into its original individual 
elements of men. As they return to their 
respective homes the Army as a body is no 
more, but the spirit that moved them through 
the fields of blood in the defence of their 
native land still lives, and will continue to live, 
as an individual part of the nation's struggle 
for existence. 

The material body of man changes or wastes 
away, the physiologist tells, once in seven 
years ; not one particle of his body in any form 
remains at the end of that time. The change 
is very gradual, the waste of the entire body is 
constant ; and it is to supply this great waste 
that we are obliged to eat, thus furnishing a 
new body constantly and gradually as the latter 
is wasting; and sleep is a brake put upon the 
body at night, to stop the waste going on in 



109 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

our waking hours. Eating supplies the waste 
like the petrifying process of wood, a strip of 
it lies in a limestone region, the wood slowly 
wastes away, and as rapidly as a particle, an 
infinitisimal particle drops, lime works in, 
hardens and fills the place, and thus as particle 
after particle of the wood is wasting, new mat- 
ter as gradually fills in, and so slow is the 
process, the form of the fibres and tissues of 
the wood is preserved through the same grad- 
ual process ; not a particle of the strip of wood 
remains ; it is petrified, the entire waste of 
wood is substituted by limestone. Now the 
fact is significant that as every molecule or 
particle of the body wastes or returns to the 
Earth in seven or more years, why, if the mind 
or spirit is not entirely independent of the 
body, and does not preserve its individuality or 
identity apart from matter, does not con- 
sciousness or memory which is part and parcel 
of the mind, waste away with the body in 
seven or more years? But on the contrary, 
the octogenarian is more conscious of events 
that occurred seventy years ago, or in the days 
of his childhood, and can remember them with 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

greater ease than events occurring within the 
space of seven years of his advanced age. Is 
the soul, the spirit immortal? Why do you, 
why do I ask the question? In the asking 
alone lies the proof. Do you desire to live be- 
yond? Is there a man living in whom this 
desire is not planted, be he Indian or 
European, Chinese or the wild African? The 
desire to live beyond is inherent in every be- 
ing on the face of the Earth. Is this a faculty 
made in vain? It is well known in science 
that the disuse of any organ weakens it, and 
that the disuse of it for many generations 
renders it worthless, the part becoming com- 
paratively lost, for nature throughout her 
realm, as any studious observer can testify, 
destroys very gradually, any faculty or aught 
else that is not in use. Take an instrument 
unused, how soon it goes to ruin. The piano, 
the clock, the violin, a machine, an engine, a 
boiler, a stove, pots and kettles, a horse even, 
if he stands idle in the stable becomes worth- 
less. Nature abhors anything that is useless, 
for nothing is made in vain, and we may rest 
assured that the desire to live beyond the grave 



New Prepositions in Philosophy. 

was not made in vain, for this is a natural de- 
sire, and a faculty that has not weakened or 
become lost, for it is used, not disused. The 
oldest history extant, the first written record 
we have of man, thousands of years in the 
past furnishes us with the desire and belief of 
man in that remote period in a life beyond the 
grave, and this desire is not only as strong, but 
stronger in the 20th century than in the past. 
What would be the happiness of today if we 
gloried not in the anticipated joys of to-mor- 
row ? We live in the future both here and in 
the hereafter. 

The entire universe is like a clock, every 
part and parcel of it plays in its own orbit, and 
it matters not how inferior the part, for its 
place is just as important in the completion of 
the great whole. If a ball is tossed into the 
air, it must obey the law of gravitation and re- 
turn, the earth will not part with any of its 
constituents. Nothing exists or moves by 
accident, or chance. An accident is an impos- 
sibility ! It apears as an accident only through 
our ignorance of the law, and that which we 
call an accident is really the faithful operation 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

of the law, for if our carriage breaks down, 
it is in obedience to the law of gravity which 
is constantly pulling it and its contents to the 
ground ; if a ship sinks it is in obedience to the 
law of gravity which is constantly operating 
to bring it to the Earth at the bottom of the 
sea; if a house is consumed by fire, it is in 
obedience to the law of combustion, the 
accident was due to carelessness and disobe- 
dience of nature's law. The Earth moves in 
its orbit around the sun with unerring exact- 
ness. Since the dawn of civilization, thousands 
of years ago, its movements have been studied. 
It completes its circuit around the sun year 
after year and has never failed to reach the 
place from which it started, a year before in 
365 days, six hours, nine minutes, ten seconds 
and 75-iooths of a second, not a fraction of a 
second has it ever varied, either slower or 
faster in the thousands of times it has traveled 
around the course, a course extending 550 
million of miles and traveling 1,133 miles a 
minute or 60 times faster than a ball fired from 
a cannon's mouth. So is it with all the planets 
in the solar system. Saturn, the ringed planet 



113 



Prop 8 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

is so far from the Sun, its path or course 
around him is very long, but with unerring 
certainty it makes the revolution in 29 of our 
years and 167 days, no more or less in the 
countless times it completes the circuit. So 
sure and exact are the laws that control all 
bodies in space, astronomers with the utmost 
precision can determine the year, the day and 
the hour, though 50 or a hundred years distant, 
that any celestial phenomena may appear in the 
heavens. Why then tangle our brains with 
doubts of the hereafter? My trust is un- 
bounded in the powers that be, for the same 
care and exactness displayed in the movements 
of all bodies in the Universe is meted to us, and 
whether we will it or no, "Thy will must be 
done on Earth as it is done in the heavens," 
and life, spirit, the very essence of our being 
is by no means the least. It is the kernel of 
everything and will roll on in its own orbit 
through the dim vista of eternity. 



114 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Some Criticisms on Ancient and Modern Phil- 
osophers' Theories. 

The ancient and modern philosophers rarely- 
agreed in their line of thought. "Their 
philosophy" as Lewes, the English savant says, 
was "a play upon words" and was utterly lack- 
ing any solid foundation upon which the past, 
present or future ages could build any frame 
work of rational principles that would give a 
complete, reliable, and indisputable conception 
of the inner or outward life of man. Let us 
review, very briefly the theories of these 
Ancient and Modern Philosophers which have 
held the speculative mind of thinkers for many 
centuries. *Beginning with Thales, one of 
the earliest philosophers on record, who flour- 
ished about 636 years B. C. He advocated 

*In my makeup of the synopsis of the varied schools 
of philosophy, I have used more or less as my 
authority, Lewis's History of Philosophy. 



115 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

that moisture was the fountain from which 
everything sprang, the beginning, and by 
which everything was controlled. It was the 
basis of all things in existence about us. Wa- 
ter was only one of the four elements, but it 
was the basic element. Anaximenes followed 
Thales. Water in his opinion was not the 
most prominent element. He believed there 
was something within him, and without, that, 
was more prominent, and that was air. It 
was the basic element of his life and other 
lives. The air was universal. Everything 
was dependent upon it. When we breathed in 
the air, and when we breathed it out, it was 
but a stream of life passing in and passing 
out. Later came Diogenes of Apollonia. He 
went a little farther and believed that air was 
the basis of the soul, the living, intelligent 
force. The Universe was a living being, 
spontaneously evolving itself. He attributed 
to the world a set of respiratory organs which 
he fancied he discovered in the stars. Man 
is superior to brutes in intelligence because he 
inhales a purer air than brutes who bow their 
heads to the ground. He believed not only 



116 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

that air was life, but it was the fountain of 
intelligence, and that intelligence must have 
been the First of Things. Pythagoras was 
born B. C, 610 or thereabouts. He intro- 
duced the term "Philosophy." His school 
was called the mathematical. "Numbers" he 
says "are the cause of the material existence 
of things." "Every individual thing is al- 
ways One thing, nothing can destroy that nu- 
merical existence. Combine the Thing in 
every possible variety of ways, and it still re- 
mains One. It cannot be less than One, and 
no more than One. The Infinite must there- 
fore be One. Two is but the relation of One 
to One. All modes of existence are but finite 
aspects of the Infinite. So all numbers are 
but numerical relations of the One. . . . 
One is necessarily the beginning of things so 
eagerly sought for by philosophers, since 
wherever you begin, you must begin with One. 
Suppose the number be three, and you strike 
off the initial number to make two, the second 
then will be One. In a word, One is the be- 
ginning of all things. 

He also taught the transmigration of souls 



117 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

. . . The soul in man is in a state of com- 
parative imperfection. It has three elements, 
reason, intelligence and passion, the two last, 
man has in common with brutes, the first is his 
distinguishing characteristic. Each of these 
aspects may predominate, and the man will 
then become eminently rational, able, or sen- 
sual. He will be a philosopher, a man of the 
world or a beast." 

Xenophanes B. C. 616, belonged to a school 
of Philosophers called "The Eleatics." He 
believed that God must be self existent, for to 
conceive Being as incipient was impossible. 
Nothing can be produced from nothing. 
Whence therefore was Being produced from 
itself? No; for then it must have been al- 
ready in existence to produce itself, otherwise 
it would have been produced from nothing. 
Hence the primary law. Being is self- 
existent. If self-existent, consequently eter- 
nal. All must be unmoved ; there is nothing 
to move it. It cannot move itself, for to do 
so it must be external to itself. He believed 
that sense (the senses) was the only criterion 
of things ; the only source of knowledge. 



118 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

Anaxagoras denied certainty to senses. The 
senses did not see the essence of things, but 
only the phenomena, the appearance of things 
— not the noumena, the essence. The senses 
are accurate in their reports, but their reports 
are not accurate copies of things. They re- 
flect objects, but they reflect them as these ob- 
jects appear to sense. Reason has to control 
these impressions to verify these reports. For 
instance, the senses may subjectively inform 
us of its impressions but they may be false, as 
a stick appears broken, half of which strikes 
the water, but it is objectively false, unbroken. 
So far from the all being the One, he pro- 
claimed the All to be the many, the mass of 
elements, and the power to arrange them in 
one harmonious system he declared to be in- 
telligence, the moving force of the Universe. 
Having disclaimed Fate and Chance he pro- 
claimed intelligence the arranging power, 
but it exists alone, in and for itself. 

The Sophists preceded Socrates and were a 
set of Philosophers who tried to overthrow all 
the doctrines of previous philosophers. They 
did not believe in Philosophy as a study, they 



119 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

thought life consisted in enjoying yourself in- 
nocently. They did not care to go to the 
basis of things, but argued upon the surface. 
Their arguments were shallow and lacked 
depth and solidity. They presented no per- 
manent system. 

Socrates first made use of definitions, and 
proceeded by induction. His philosophy was 
promulgated largely by questions. He pro- 
fessed to know nothing of philosophical pro- 
positions, and had no patience with those who 
professed to know. He confounded these 
philosophers by his searching, philosophical 
mode of questioning; hence before he got 
through with them they were wound up into 
a snarl and found that Socrates knew more 
than they, though unprofessionally. He be- 
lieved in method in philosophy. He was the 
founder of a new epoch, and some regard him 
as the founder of Greek philosophy. It may 
be doubted whether any one before Socrates 
ever used the words germs and species in the 
philosophical sense now appropriated to them. 
Truth was to be sought by looking inwards, 
not by looking outwards. Definition is the 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

one grand characteristic of the method Soc- 
rates originated. Aristole says, "The specu- 
lations of Socrates were only concerning 
ethics, and not at all concerning nature in gen- 
eral." He believed no science could be taught, 
only drawn out. Each man mast conquer 
truth for himself, by rigid struggle with him- 
self, he must work it out and not copy or bor- 
row it from others. Socrates had no school, 
he taught no system. He exhibited a method. 
He had no especial building or grove, as did 
Plato to talk and question with his followers. 
He went into the market place or other places 
in business marts and streets, and there his 
admirers assembled about him. 

The Cynics was a schood represented largely 
by Antisthenes and Diogenes. It was a 
school that did not believe in any ostentation, 
no show of dress or in any fashions of society. 
Their aim was to differ from other men. 
Antisthenes appeared in a threadbare cloak, 
with ostentatious poverty. Socrates saw 
through it all and exclaimed, "I see your 
vanity, Antisthenes, peering through the holes 
of your cloak." Diogenes of Synope's aim in 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

life was to live a life of virtue. That virtue 
was cynicism. It consisted in the complete 
renunciation of all luxury, the subjugation of 
all sensual desires. It was a war carried on 
by the mind against the body. The body was 
vile, filthy, and degrading, it was the curse of 
man ; it was the clog upon the free develop- 
ment of the mind ; it was wrestled with, hated 
and despised. He slept under marble porticos 
of buildings or in his celebrated tub. Decency 
of every kind he studiously outraged. It was 
a part of his system to do so. It was an out- 
rageous system, but nevertheless it required 
considerable moral courage to preach and 
practice it. 

Plato taught his philosophy in the form of 
dialogues. He affirms nothing, but after pro- 
ducing many arguments and examining a 
question on every side leaves it undetermined. 
Some regard Plato as the expounder of the 
doctrine of Socrates, and others regard him as 
the originator of a new philosophy. He was 
undoubtedly a follower and to a large extent 
an exponent of Socratic philosophy. He had 
the remarkable faculty of understanding and 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

absorbing all the prominent points of the 
philosophy of his predecessors, he was an 
encyclopedia of the learning of all before him ; 
the treasury of the intelligence of the age. 
His method was thus: If the subject be vir- 
tue, the general term must first be decomposed 
into all its parts, i. e., into all its virtues and 
from a thorough examination of the virtues a 
clear idea of virtue may be attained. Plato 
was a realist, a communist. Children belong 
to the state ; property belonging to individuals 
must be abolished. The state alone has 
riches. 

Aristotle (B. C. 384) was at the summit of 
ancient philosophers. Before laying down his 
own views he always examines the views of 
his predecessors with tedious minuteness and 
his own opinions often seem brought out in 
his criticism rather than dogmatically 
affirmed. Hence some have declared his 
method to be the historical method. Plato 
stands philosophically between Socrates and 
Aristotle. The distinction between brutes and 
men in the mind of Aristotle is that the 
former, although they have memory have no 



123 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

experience, that is to say have not the art 
which converts memory into experience. The 
method of Aristotle seems to be the method of 
positive science, he maintained that the com- 
pleteness of knowledge is obtainable through 
completeness of experience. He made experi- 
ence the basis of all science, and reason the 
architect. Aristotle was a prominent writer 
on Natural History. A vast amount of money 
was spent for him in obtaining animals by 
Alexander that he could study their habits, 
etc. Aristotle created moral philosophy. 

Sceptics, of which Pyrrho was the founder, 
claim there is no criterion of truth. Our 
senses or sensations do not give us the true 
image of things. An apple to some is bril- 
liant, odorous and sweet, while to others of 
poorer sight, scent and taste, it may be dull, 
rugged and insipid. Our knowledge is the 
knowledge of phenomena, the appearance of 
things and not the real thing or the criterion 
of things for others to follow. Reason it is 
said by other philosophers is the criterion of 
truth, but what proof, the Sceptics say, have 
you that reason never errs, and is ever correct ? 



124 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

Because we only know things as they appear 
to us, not as they really are, all attempts to 
penetrate the mystery of existence must be 
vain, for the attempts can only be made on ap- 
pearances. 

The Stoics were represented by Zeno the 
founder. Zeno's thoughts were centered 
mostly on morals. He was practical, and be- 
lieved in a practical life. Virtue was above 
pleasure. Their philosophy was something 
like the Cynics, but unlike them in so far they 
did not preach or practice their grossness and 
indecent habits. The Stoics of Rome were 
soldiers and had a contempt of death. Their 
combats in the gladitorial arena hardened the 
feelings, both of the performers and the 
observers or auditors. The Greek Stoics were 
different from the Roman, they did not fear 
death nor did they despise it. They loved life, 
but when the time came to fight for their 
country, they gave their lives without a mur- 
mur. The Stoics in their dread of becoming 
effeminate, became hardened as marble. They 
despised pain. To be above pain was thought 
manly. This however must be affectation, for 



( 25 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

the pain is there, and the visible suppression of 
it is only a matter of nerve and habit. 

Greece no longer produced philosophers. 
They had exhausted all the theories in the 
past that could be invented. From Thales to 
the Stoics every manner of speculative and 
practical hypothesis in the realms of philos- 
ophy was brought out. In Alexandria, Egypt, 
the next attempt to bring out philosophical 
propositions was inaugurated by Philo and 
Proclus a few years before Christ, but it was 
of comparative short duration. Nothing of 
any great importance was added to philosophy 
for nearly two thousand years after Aristotle, 
a period from 384 years before Christ to about 
1,561 years after. Then Bacon came upon 
the scene, and gave philosophy a new start 
after a rest of so many centuries. Bacon 
is generally called the father of experimental 
philosophy, although it was taught to some 
extent by some of the ancient philosophers. 
His prominence is due to his system of presen- 
tation. He believed in a gradual verification 
of all statements made through research. He 
was not satisfied in advising enquirers to 



126 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

make experiments and observations, he told 
them how observations and experiments ought 
to be made. He separated science from the 
church. 

He was very much opposed to the doctrines 
of Ancient Philosophers. He did not believe 
their genius availed them anything, and the 
same is said of Bacon by the writers of to-day. 

Bacon's method was the inductive method, 
and so was that of Socrates, but the latter was 
concerning the life within, while Bacon's was 
upon life without, as seen in nature in all its 
variety. But Macauley says, "The Inductive 
method has been practised ever since the be- 
ginning of the world by every human being 

Induction being the process of 

all reasoning, of course so long as men have 
reasoned, they have reasoned Inductively." 

Descartes is considered the father of 
Modern Philosophy. He thought that the ex- 
istence of God and the nature of the soul were 
chiefly propositions which ought to be demon- 
strated rather by philosophy than by theology. 
He advocated that the consciousness of his 
existence was to him the assurance of his 



127 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

existence. He makes consciousness the main 
thing in his philosophy. Consciousness is the 
basis of all truth, there is none other possible. 
Here we have a new basis, and a new philos- 
ophy introduced. Consciousness was the 
basis of all knowledge, it is the only ground 
of certainty. His axiom is, "All clear ideas 
are true, whatever is clearly and distinctly con- 
ceived is true. This he considers is the 
foundation of science, the rule and measure of 
truth. 

Spinoza who followed in the 17th century, 
asks, "What is the Noumena, the foundation, 
the thing itself, which lies beneath all phe- 
nomena ? We see everywhere transformations 
perishable and perishing, yet there must be 
something beneath which is imperishable, im- 
mutable, what is it? We see a wondrous 
Universe peopled with wondrous beings. Yet 
none of these beings exist per se, they are 
not the authors of their own existence. The 
great reality of all existence is substance, that 
which underlies phenomena. The principle 
doctrine of his school is, "there is but one 
infinite substance and that is God. Whatever 



128 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

is, is in God, and without Him, nothing can be 
conceived. He is the Universal Being- of 
which all things are the manifestations. He is 
the sole substance, everything else is a Mode. 
Locke, who was born in 1632, was the 
founder of Modern Psychology. The leading 
questions of philosophy he scientifically re- 
duced to the primary question of the limits of 
human understanding. He studied the origin 
of our thoughts. He did not study books, he 
believed in self education. He studied 
savages and children to collect facts concern- 
ing the origin of ideas. It is because men, he 
thinks, have analyzed the mind in its culti- 
vated condition, that they have been led to 
false results. Had they compared their analy- 
sis with that of an uncultivated mind, they 
might have gained some insight. He advances 
the thought that men extending their enquiries 
beyond their capacities and letting their 
thoughts wander into those depths where they 
can find no sure footing, it is no wonder that 
they raise questions and multiply disputes, 
which never coming to any clear resolution, 
tend only to confirm them at last in perfect 



129 



Prop 9 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

Scepticism. He believed that our ideas are 
derived from two sources, sensation and reflec- 
tion, and our knowledge is founded on experi- 
ence. "If it is demanded," he says, "when a 
man begins to have any ideas, I think the true 
answer is, when he first has any sensation. 
For since there appear not to be any ideas in 
the mind before the senses have conveyed any 
in, I conceive that ideas in the understanding 
are coeval with sensation," hence the conclu- 
sion is easily arrived at, that there is no such 
thing as innate ideas as some advocate. 

Berkley would accept nothing only what his 
senses informed him. He says that "since 
those immediate objects of perception, which 
according to you are only appearances of 
things, I take to be real things themselves. 
The table he saw before him certainly existed, 
and not simply the appearance, there was no 
invisible substance supporting that table. 
. . . . All our knowledge of objects is a 
knowledge of ideas; objects and ideas are the 
same. Our knowledge is subjective. Ideal- 
ism agrees with realism, in placing reliance on 
the evidence of sense." 



t 3 o 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

Kant, born in 1724, called his system the 
Critical Philosophy. He believed in the re- 
liability of consciousness, and a system of 
morals, a belief in a future state and in the 
existence of a God. 

Fitche, who was born in 1762, be- 
lieved that the ultimatum of man was 
not thought, but action, which is thought 
realized. The will he considered was the 
cause, the living force or spirit in man, as mo- 
tion was the moving power of the world, and 
realized in contact with our senses. He was 
an Idealist, and idealism is the system or theory 
that denies the existence of material bodies 
and teaches that we have no rational grounds 
to believe in the reality of anything but ideas 
and their relations. 

Shelling, born in 1775, says philosophy be- 
gins where ordinary knowledge terminates. 
He believed the Ego and the Non Ego were 
equally real. It is as impossible to con- 
ceive an object known without a subject 
knowing as it is to conceive a subject knowing 
without an object known. Nature is spirit 
visible. Spirit is invisible nature. Shelling 



x 3i 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

had three divisions in his system. The 
philosophy of nature, the transcendental phil- 
osophy, (which he claims is to have a true 
knowledge of all things, material and im- 
material, human and divine, so far as the mind 
is capable of knowing them. This definition 
is now generally accepted.) and third, the 
philosophy of the Absolute or Infinite. Con- 
sciousness so long accepted as the foundation 
of philosophy, he discarded as insufficient to 
explain all the propositions. Consciousness 
was no ground of certitude, reason was the 
organ of philosophy, and reason was imper- 
sonal. The identity of being and knowing 
took the place of consciousness, and became 
the basis of all speculation. His system had 
more influence in the department of nature 
than in anything else. 

Hegel, born in 1770, brought out a new 
system. He advocated that whatever was true 
of the thought was true of the thing. Ideas 
and the objects were correlative and equally 
true. He says that non-existence, the nothing 
exists, because it is a thought. He believed in 
contraries. He declared that identity of con- 



[32 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

traries was the very condition of all existence, 
without a contrary nothing could come into be- 
ing. Being was at the same time non-being. 
Light was darkness and darkness was light. 
In his philosophy of religion he believed in the 
trinity, God, the father was before the world 
nnd created it. The vulgar notion of theolo- 
gians is that God created the world by an act, 
but Hegel says that the creation is not an act, 
but an eternal moment, — not a thing done, but 
a thing perpetually doing. God did not create 
the world, he is eternally creating it. He did 
not believe in the prevailing notion that God, 
having created the world by an act of his will, 
lets it develop itself with no interference of 
his. 

Auguste Comte flourished in 1832. He was 
considered the father of Positive Philosophy. 
He advances three propositions: First, Phil- 
osophy is identical with science. Every special 
science is but a branch of Positive Philosophy. 
Second is that of classification. Third, con- 
ception is that of the fundamental law of evo- 
lution, evolution of thought. 

Ferrari held that experience was the only 
foundation of truth. He attempted a philo- 



[ 32> 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

sophical reconstruction of the political de- 
velopment of nations founded entirely on ex- 
perience and induction. Some others con- 
tend that the province of philosophy must be 
confined within the limits of natural science. 

Herbert Spencer's philosophy is a synthetic 
philosophy, that is, studying and accumulating 
all the particulars and details and then em- 
bracing or gathering them together towards 
building one general subject or method or gen- 
eral philosophy. He advances the proposition 
that the population of the world should not 
and does not increase any faster than the exis- 
tence of subsistence to supply the necessities of 
the inhabitants. Population decreases in pro- 
portion to the decrease of subsistence or should 
do so by plagues, pestilence, wars, etc., or 
less births. His philosophies include, the 
philosophy of ethics, philosophy of sociology, 
philosophy of religion and other subjects 
equally important. 

It will be seen on reviewing the doctrines of 
these philosophers I have outlined, and they 
are the leading savants of the ages, that their 
philosophies are simply a play upon theoreti- 



[ 34 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

cal and rhetorical terms, exhibiting ingenious 
methods for the display of highly wrought 
mental gymnastics and an effort on the part 
of each philosopher to outdo or overthrow 
altogether the philosophy of his predecessor 
and establish a new school or a new method of 
presentation of ideas with all the force of men- 
tal vigor of which he was capable. Take the 
early philosophers. Thales, who advocated 
the notion that moisture was the fountain 
from which everything sprang, and Anaxi- 
menes, who advanced the theory that air was 
the basic element of life and that everything 
was dependent upon it, and then Diogenes of 
Apollonio, who thought that air was the basis 
of the soul, the living, intelligent force. With 
equal consistency, these philosophers might 
claim that heat was the living, vital force, on 
which all living things depended for existence. 
The philosophy of Pythagoras, one of the 
most prominent of ancient philosophers, 
claimed, as we have seen as one of his theories, 
that numbers was the cause of the material 
existence of things. One (the initial number) 
of course is the beginning and the chief cor- 



x 35 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

ner-stone of the mathematical world, without 
it figures would lose its prop or foundation, 
but to say that "it is the cause of existence," is 
an absurdity that reason cannot sanction. 

Xenophanes displayed more sense in his 
school of philosophy than most of the ancients, 
with especial reference to his argument in re- 
lation to self-existence, where he proclaims 
that God must be self-existent, for "to con- 
ceive of being as incipient was impossible. 
Nothing can be produced from nothing. If 
Being is self-existent it is consequently eter- 
nal," and so it may be inferred from his argu- 
ment, that man is self-existent and always was 
in some form, and consequently eternal. 
While Xenophanes advocated that sense was 
the only criterion of things and the only source 
of knowledge, Anaxagoras, who followed 
after, denied certainty to senses, they did not 
see the essence of things, but only the (appear- 
ance, the phenomena, not the noumena. So 
here we see contradictory philosophies, and it 
is possible that both are right, for it resolves 
itself simply in a quibble or wrangle of words 
or terms. What do we find in the Sophists, we 



136 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

find their arguments resting upon the surface 
of things, were shallow, and without depth. 
They came to destroy, and produced nothing, 
they believed in having a good time. Not- 
withstanding their pretensions they were not 
philosophers in the true sense of the word. 

The advent of Socrates in the world of men- 
tality has been considered an important mile- 
stone in the history of philosophy. His 
processes of thought was displayed by Induc- 
tion, a method of study in which all the par- 
ticulars, the details, the branches of a topic 
were first investigated, and then generalized 
into one great whole, but "induction we saw," 
says Macauley, "is nothing new, but has been 
practiced by everybody, who is accustomed to 
reasoning, since the world began. Socrates 
established no prominent system, he paid 
great stress upon "Definition" and why 
shouldn't he. His method of questioning was 
perhaps the most original factor with him, but 
his life, a comparative spotless life, was after 
all the one thing that commends this man to 
posterity. What do we find in the Cynics, 
represented by Antisthenes and Diogenes to 



[ 37 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

commend itself for our consideration or imita- 
tion ? Nothing ! nothing but the underlying 
principle of virtue that controlled their 
thoughts and action, but the manifestation and 
expression of this sublime attribute, in its 
naked form as presented by them to a cultured 
humanity, unadorned by the civilities and de- 
cencies respected and practised by man, de- 
graded them to the level of a lower order of 
animal life, notwithstanding their denunciation 
of the sensual and gluttonous habits and pleas- 
ures practiced by man. Plato was one of the 
great lights of his age. He is known largely 
as the expounder and interpreter of Socrates, 
and it may be said he had the great mental 
capacity of absorbing and expounding all the 
great thoughts advanced by the philosophical 
advocates preceding him. He was a realist 
and what reasonable being existing who is not. 
Aristotle was one of the greatest philoso- 
phers, if not the greatest philosopher, who 
lived in ancient times. So great was he that 
he embodied all the truths advanced by his 
distinguished predecessors, truths, not un- 
truths, adding new theories of his own and 



'38 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

they lived for nearly 2,000 years, for all 
philosophers appearing after him were so 
eclipsed by his greatness they sank into 
oblivion. The sceptics and stoics followed 
after, also the Alexandrian philosophers, but 
they added nothing new to the world of phi- 
losophy. Notwithstanding the greatness of 
Aristotle, the only prominent system he added 
to those of his predecessors was, that experi- 
ence was the basis of all truths, and who can 
doubt that it is the fundamental stepping stone 
to our thoughts and actions, but it would not 
seem that it should take centuries to arrive at 
a true conception of that fact. In 1561 — 
nearly 2,000 years later — another prominent 
philosopher appeared in the person of Bacon, 
but he presented no important theory in philos- 
ophy not advocated by the ancient philosophers. 
He is claimed to be the father of experimental 
philosophy, but we have seen that Aristotle 
advocated that doctrine to a large extent. The 
Inductive method advocated by Bacon was the 
Socrocratic method, only Socrates believed in 
the study of it as applied to thought within, 
while Bacon believed in its application to 



[ 39 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

nature without, and so we find with most of 
his philosophy the mode of presentation varied 
to some extent with that of his predecessors. 
As we pass down the line of our modern 
philosophers since Bacon, we find that con- 
sciousness was the foundation of Descartes 
doctrine, but denied by Schelling as the true 
ground for certitude, and then appears Hegel 
with his philosophy of contraries, that here 
lies the great factor of our progress, and we 
must not forget Locke with his natural and 
practical method of investigation, and his 
doctrine of senses being the criterion of truth, 
already advocated by some of his predecessors, 
and although Auguste Comte is termed the 
"father of Positive Philosophy," Aristotle 
adopted this method largely in the presenta- 
tion of his views more than 2,000 years before 
Comte. The latter varies from him in his 
classification of the method presented. It will 
be seen in studying the systems of the philos- 
ophers of both ancient and modern, that there 
is an abundance of repetition among them, and 
that there has not been a great advance in 
modern thought upon these philosophical 



140 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

problems and propositions up to the present 
century. The modes and methods have 
changed somewhat, but principles very little. 
The questions involving the thoughts of the 
savants have been more in the line of moral, 
spiritual, social and mental hygiene of man, 
upon which opinions will vary (without arriv- 
ing at any absolute certitude) instead of inves- 
tigations of the more practical problems of the 
forces of the natural world and the Universe, 
which must demand greater attention and 
thought in the studies of future philosophers. 



141 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Do Rocks Contain Life. 

To say that rocks contain life, is a radical 
assertion, nevertheless, I shall advance the 
proposition. We say a thing has life that 
possesses the power to grow and develop. 
Rocks do not apparently possess this quality, 
but when we study their structure carefully and 
thoughtfully we find changes in their forms 
have been constantly occurring. Look at the 
pure crystal ; has that not passed through 
a process of development, from the simplest 
amorphous rock to the highest crystalliza- 
tion? We say that is due to some chemical 
action, largely through heat. It is simply the 
manifestation of a force ; not that heat is the 
force itself any more than the power of speech 
is the force. Speech is simply the manifesta- 
tion of that force which is behind both speech 
and brain and unseen. So an unseen force is 
behind heat, the latter being simply the phe- 



142 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

nomena, and not the noumena, the power that 
prompts or propels it. Heat I do not regard 
as a link in the correlation of forces ; but a 
link in the primary manifestations of force, 
correlated to each other, as light, motion, elec- 
tricity, magnetism, etc. These are all resolved 
or reduced to one primary force, which pro- 
duces said primary correlative manifestations. 
Spend an evening with an experimenter in 
this line of work, as we have with Tyndall in 
the lecture room, and watch his experiments 
in crystallization. As soon as the current of 
electricity begins to pass through a certain 
liquid, the wire becomes covered with bubbles, 
and foliage developes with the most extraor- 
dinary rapidity. The particles seem to form 
in the liquid, and rush with violence to attach 
themselves in leaves and frond-like forms to 
the attractive wire. The general apearance of 
the tree there formed, is fern-like and grace- 
ful. Some one says, "In the process of crys- 
tallization nature first reveals herself a 
builder." Where do her operations stop? 
Does she continue by the play of the same 
forces to form the vegetable and afterward 



[ 43 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

the animal? Whatever the answer to these 
questions may be, the notions of coming 
generations regarding this mysterious thing 
which some have called brute matter will be 
very different from those in generations past. 
Life in each kingdom is differently developed. 
In the animal kingdom, growth of stature 
ceases at a certain age, while in the vegetable 
kingdom it continues through the individual 
existence of the plant. The former posesses 
the power to move from place to place at will, 
the latter is fixed to one spot, and derives its 
nourishment chiefly through the lower part of 
its organism, while the sustenance of the ani- 
mal kingdom is taken through the upper. The 
resulting processes of these developments are 
easily explained, save the cessation of growth 
of man or animals at a certain age ; and why 
said physical growth does not continue 
through life as with the plant, is not yet satis- 
factorily understood. All of these processes 
and developments, however, are simply the re- 
sults of some unexplained force which propels 
and gives shape and form to matter, not only 
in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, but 



144 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

in the mineral kingdom, which manifests itself, 
though differently, yet most distinctly in 
varied crystallizations. 

The differentiation in life is very marked in 
the development of our planet. To-day in 
man, more than all others in the broad realms 
of nature, dwell the greatest and the widest 
manifestations of life. Like the beast, he en- 
joys the powers of locomotion, self-defense, 
etc., but more than that, he enjoys an intellect 
as varied as it is great, and as far beyond the 
beast as the latter is beyond the oyster, or the 
oyster beyond the lowest form or manifestation 
of animal life. In the first, the most recent 
planetary development, man, we find the broad- 
est variety ; in the beast its development is less 
marked ; in the oyster the differentiation in life 
is reduced to a very narrow limit ; in proto- 
plasm, the base, or the lowest round in the 
ladder of animal life, the variety of manifesta- 
tion is as small as is possible to imagine in 
this kingdom. In the vegetable kingdom, 
differentiation is still less marked, for life is 
manifested only in reproduction and growth 
with changing forms, while in the mineral 



[ 45 



Prop 10 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

kingdom, the variety of life's manifestation is 
reduced to the lowest or narrowest limit in mat- 
ter as a solid; its manifestation though less 
apparent than in the higher kingdoms, is never- 
theless to the investigator positive, for growth 
and change of form through crystallization is 
everywhere observed. Vegetation develops 
largely through the influence of heat ; so does 
crystallization in the mineral kingdom develop 
largely through the same manifestation of 
force. One writer claims that electricity is 
the basis of life, but be it heat or electricity that 
animates the vegetable and animal kingdoms, 
must not we claim that through both of them 
the mineral kingdom develops and changes 
form through crystallization ; but as previously 
stated, both heat and electricity are correlated 
manifestations of a force that prompts the 
action ; the latter we may call the vital element 
which animates the universe, giving life to 
rocks through crystallization and development, 
to plants and animals through germination. 
To produce a good plant we must see the soil 
contains those mineral properties which we 
know the plant, upon analysis, itself possesses, 



146 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

for the plant is simply a mineral or minerals 
with gases reproduced or developed, or in 
other words metamorphosed into vegetable 
life. 



H7 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Is There a Center, an End or Limit to the 
Universe? 

In ancient days the Earth was considered 
the center of the Universe. Small was our 
planet to the ancients as compared to the pres- 
ent known dimensions. Aristotle, three hun- 
dred and fifty years B. C, limited it on the 
North by Ireland, on the South by the northern 
part of Africa, on the West by Guadalquiver, 
and on the East by the Indus or Hindostan. 
In the second century Ptolemy enlarged the 
boundary by placing Norway as its northern 
limit, a spot near Madagascar, the southern ; 
the Canary Isles its western, and China the 
extreme point on the east. At the time of the 
flood — many centuries before the birth of 
Aristotle — the known boundaries of the world 
to those old patriarchs must have been so nar- 
row that it is a matter of surprise the freshet 
recorded as covering this small strip of earth 



148 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

was not amended to include the universe, the 
knowledge of which being as dimunitive as of 
the globe which to them was a flat surface 
that they inhabited. In the age of Homer a 
great sea is made to surround the narrow limits 
of the earth, and even after the discovery of 
the Canary Isles, geographers portrayed huge 
statues on those islands flourishing mammoth 
clubs to prevent explorers passing beyond, and 
not until the ninth century did the geographical 
knowledge of the boundaries of the world 
increase. Then the discovery of Greenland 
was made by the Norwegians. In the 
thirteenth century Marco Polo's discovery 
enlarged the boundaries on the East, while in 
the early part of the fifteenth century, the 
southern limit was extended through the dis- 
coveries in Africa by the Portuguese, and still 
later, in 1479, further increased by the doub- 
ling of Cape of Good Hope by Vasca de Gama. 
Up to this period, or the year 1492 only one- 
half of the world was discovered, the great 
hemisphere of the west was unknown, then 
came the brilliant discoveries of Columbus, 
which were soon followed by those of the Cab- 



149 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

ots, De Soto, Pinzon, Balboa, Magellan and 
others, and it is not but a century since that a 
^very large portion of the Southern hemisphere 
lay unexplored, and to the greatest of modern 
navigators, Capt. Cook, do we owe largely the 
extension of its boundaries, and thus only step 
by step, have we become acquainted with the 
contour and dimensions of the planet we 
inhabit. Among the ancients the belief more 
or less prevailed that the starry heaven was a 
crystal vault, or a large ice belt surrounding us, 
and the points called the stars simply promi- 
nent crystals projecting from the ice mass. 
This notion was at last dispelled, but the earth 
was still supposed to be the center of the Uni- 
verse, around which all bodies in space 
revolved, and not until the sixteenth century 
did Copernius, after investigating the Ptol- 
maic, Pythagorean and Egyptian systems, 
together with that of Philolans and others, 
announce to the world that the moon only 
revolved around the Earth, while the latter, 
situated between the orbits of Venus and Mars, 
revolved with all the planets around the sun. 
It was long before the world accepted the 



; 5o 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

Copernican system. Galileo must first suffer 
imprisonment for its advocacy, and to-day the 
system is so generally acknowledged that 
should one dare to oppose it, it is possible he 
might lodge in an asylum for the insane. The 
age has so far advanced that astronomical 
facts and laws are no longer a matter of 
speculation, but are actually demonstrated or 
proven by systematical mathematical calcula- 
tions. One is not obliged to climb the summit 
of St. Peter to ascertain its height, but by tak- 
ing certain angles below, its measurements can 
be given exact. So with the stars, their dis- 
tances from the earth can be easily found and 
through mathematical reckoning, their velocity 
and size in many instances accurately ascer- 
tained. Our Sun even although holding and 
controlling all matter within billions of miles 
from it in its firm grasp, does not reign 
supreme as the center of the Universe, but is 
moving on. Alcyone, the central star in that 
beautiful cluster called Pleides in Taurus, was 
fixed upon by some as the center of the Uni- 
verse, around whom the stars revolved and 
upon which was situated the throne of God. 



: 5i 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

This is now amended by substituting some 
other center far beyond our unaided or aided 
sight, around which Alcyone and the circles 
of stars filling the area of our limited vision 
revolve. The extent of this vast Universe is 
beyond the comprehension of man. To com- 
prehend anything of which we can have no 
practical knowledge upon the Earth is an 
impossibility. We can conceive of space about 
us limited, but of unlimited space we cannot 
A limit to anything imaginable, must be 
necessarily bounded by something beyond it. 
So it is with the Universe ; a limited Universe 
or one with a center implies a boundary. And 
what shall it be bounded by? What lies be- 
yond it? Matter? What form of matter? 
And if not matter can it be less than space. 
Nothing can exist without space, and if space, 
what shall form the line of limit between the 
limited Universe and this space beyond. Shall 
it be walled? If it appears at first thought 
that the Universe must be limited, reflect and 
consider that if space lies beyond the limit, 
(and the absence of space is incomprehensi- 
ble), why is not that included in the Universe, 



: 5-^ 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

a part and parcel thereof. In a word, does 
not the Universe, include all, everything, 
whether matter, force, thought, spirit, time or 
space? What can possibly exist outside of it? 
Nothing within the scope of our conception. It 
would appear then that a limited Universe is 
incomprehensible. Can we conceive of a Uni- 
verse without a limit? It is unquestionably 
easier to understand that the Universe can be 
unlimited than limited, for it appeals more to 
our common sense that it cannot be bounded, 
although it is impossible for man to conceive 
of the Universe or space as endless. 

The immensity of the Universe can be par- 
tially understood (and by using the word par- 
tially, I mean as far as our calculation and 
aided vision extends) by examining the record 
of distances of some of the stars from us. 
According to Guillemin, a German astronomer, 
the nearest fixed star is 211,330 radii of the 
Earth's orbit, or to put it in miles, the radius 
of the Earth's orbit is about 95,000,000 which 
multiplied by 211,330 equals 20,076,350,000,- 
000 miles distant, this distance is so great that 
light travelling at the rate of about 192,000 



[ 53 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

miles per second or around the Earth 7^ 
times in a second, would take some 3^ years 
to reach us. Sirius, the Dog star, is computed 
to be some 130,625,000,000,000 miles from us 
and the time it would take for its light to reach 
us, should it start to-day, would be about 2,2 
years, or to make its distance from us still more 
comprehensive, suppose it were possible for 
sound to reach that star and that in our 
ambitious Napoleonic flights we should bom- 
bard it and send from our planet a ball from 
the cannon's mouth, although the flash of it 
would reach it in 22 years, the inhabitants 
would have sufficient time to make good their 
escape, for it would be some two million of 
years before they, or rather the spot aimed at 
would be struck, and a million of years more 
before the report of the discharge would be 
heard, and were the limbs of the sons of this 
star elastic enough to stretch to the Earth and 
give our quarrelsome inhabitants a fisting for 
this intrusion we could cleave the hands from 
the bodies of these avenging sons and pain 
traveling with the rapidity of sensation in the 
human system in informing the brain of the 



[ 54 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

injury, fifteen million of years would elapse 
before the sensation would reach the grand 
sensorium in the brain of the sons of Sirius, 
and were it possible for them to send proposals 
of peace by a messenger on an express train 
to the earth, running night and day thirty 
miles an hour, it would take seventy-two mil- 
lions of years ere the papers could be laid be- 
fore the people of our planet and the conflict 
settled. Some stars seen only by the largest 
telescope are so distant from us, that should 
a ray of light start from them at this moment 
it would take thousands of years to reach us, 
and it is probable that if we could wing our 
flight to those distant stars, we should find 
just as many in the unlimited distance beyond 
as those left behind. Should we continue our 
flight onward, worlds beyond worlds would 
ever meet our gaze. We thus begin to creep 
into the shadow of dim realization, that we 
are but a drop in the vast Universal ocean 
and can comprehend as little of the immensity 
of the Universe, as the infant at its mother's 
breast can intelligently understand the vastness 
and area occupied by the land and water upon 



: 55 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

the Earth's surface, and with equal difficulty- 
is it possible for us to comprehend a center, 
and end or limit to the vast space above us. 



J 56 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Moon and the Weather. 

This is an inquiry into the proposition 
whether the moon has anything to do with 
the weather. All scientists are agreed that 
the moon's and sun's attraction is largely the 
cause of tides upon the earth. A cursory 
investigation of this phenomena will be 
necessary to aid us in our research. All 
bodies in the heavens are attracted toward each 
other in proportion to their size and distances. 
Although the Moon is much smaller than the 
Earth, it attracts the latter towards itself 
in proportion as the size of the Earth is to the 
size of the Moon ; the force of attraction of the 
latter upon the Earth is sufficient to pull the 
Earth to itself a distance of two thousand 
miles. Now the Moon's attraction of that 
particular point or side of the Earth presented 
during its rotation on its axis nearest to our 



J 57 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

satellite, is greater even than the attraction of 
the Sun, although the attraction of the latter 
for the Earth as a whole is vastly greater than 
the Moon's attraction; hence the water upon 
the Earth being a liquid, and far lighter than 
the solid portion, is easier attracted by the 
Moon on that portion of the Earth's surface 
turned towards it. Now regarding the ocean 
covering three quarters of the Earth's surface 
as one huge drop of water, the Moon's attrac- 
tion in pulling the water toward it, elongates 
the drop. The portion of it on the side facing 
the Moon, and the nearest to it, being pulled or 
drawn towards it, accounts for the high tide 
on this side, while the waters between the two 
ends of said elongation must necessarily be 
shallow or low, which accounts for the low 
tide on both sides of the Earth between the 
portion facing the Moon and the side opposite ; 
and the elongated end on said opposite side of 
the globe being pulled or attracted by the 
sun, at the full of the Moon, will also ex- 
plain the cause of the deep waters or high 
course of tides, making two high tides 
and two low tides on the opposite parts 



*58 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

of the earth at the same moment. We are 
now prepared to study the hypothesis which I 
originally advanced a quarter of a century 
ago in the Boston Commonwealth in 
relation to the influence of the full moon 
upon the weather. The atmosphere surround- 
ing the Earth, is a substance, as much as water, 
only not as dense ; its weight is many thousand 
tons. There are tides of atmosphere as well as 
water, only the former are far greater than 
the latter, because a light substance is more 
easily attracted than a denser substance. A 
storm approaching a day or two before the 
full of the moon is apt to continue until the 
moon fulls, and then generally ceases. Why 
is this? It must be due to the same reason 
that causes the tides of the ocean to rise and 
fall ; the Moon attracts the clouds and pulls 
them, as it were, towards itself, and much 
more at the full of the moon, and when new, 
than at any other phase, the same as it attracts 
the waters more at its full, and new, and why? 
It is well known that the sun attracts the waters 
of the Earth as well as the Moon, but not as 
much, the Sun's attraction being in the ratio of 



[ 59 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

about one-third to two-thirds of the moon; 
hence when the moon is full it is on one side 
of the Earth, while the Sun is directly (or 
nearly) opposite on the other side, and as both 
are on the same line or plane with the Earth, 
both the Sun and the Moon attract or pull the 
huge drop of water called the ocean, on oppo- 
site sides ; hence the elongation of the drop is 
far greater, and the tides much higher, than 
when these heavenly bodies are not on the 
same line or plane, and directly opposite. 
Hence it will be observed that the full moon 
will attract or pull the clouds away from the 
earth more than at any other phase, and con- 
sequently the clouds being farther removed, 
are more likely to become scattered and 
broken ; when this takes place the storm must 
of course necessarily abate, or else as is 
often the case, the severity of the storm is too 
great to be effected by said attraction, and 
hence when there is a storm on the full of the 
moon, it is a very severe one, too severe to be 
controlled by the moon's attraction. All 
sailors are familiar with this phenomena, 
though not able to explain the cause. 



1 60 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

CHAPTER X. 

Philosophy of Transition and Unrest. 

Transition is the law of the Universe. 
Absolute rest in any form is an impossibility. 
An acorn sprouts from the Earth, develops 
into a giant oak. It is leveled to the ground, 
sent to the mill, sawed into lumber and framed 
into a house. Man cudgels his brains to stay 
the hand of the great leveler, but his efforts 
are but momentarily, it is only a question of 
time, the building must surely fall, transition 
is the law, rest is imaginary, unreal. The 
edifice decomposes and returns to the Earth 
from which it sprang, years pass on and the 
matter composing it passes again into vegeta- 
tion and were the existence of man long enough 
here below, and his power of vision great 
enough, he would observe the changes in pass- 
ing from one state into another in its process 
of decomposition, its reunion with other ele- 
ments, and its gradual development into an or- 



161 



Prop ii 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

ganic existence. Should it fail to reach again 
the aristocracy of lumber for the house, or a 
royal position in the ship, or fall in its incipient 
stages of existence, a victim of the fireplace, or 
still lower into the depths of futurity, to lay 
and rot, smother and sweat under the heavy 
burden of centuries and then be disturbed in 
its rocky bed of coal in the bowels of the earth, 
lifted into the light of day to burn and be con- 
sumed for the comfort of man, the change 
must come in some form. . 

While some forms of matter can make the 
cycle of transition within the limits of a cen- 
tury, others take centuries. Observe the action 
of water and air upon the rock and note the 
wear and waste which even in a century is 
noticeable, especially rocks of moderate 
hardness. Even where the ledge of rock lies 
undisturbed for centuries the expansion and 
contraction of spaces between the atoms and 
molecules composing it makes rest impossible 
in this as in all forms of matter. Turn to 
the stars and watch their motions in space, 
day after day, year after year, century after 
century, and thousands upon thousands of 



162 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

years roll on, without any perceptible change 
apparent in them, yet the change going on is 
constant, but the existence of man on earth is 
so brief compared even to the developments of 
our planet, men cannot measure the growth 
and decay of these bodies. 

How vast then must have been the transition 
in man, in the development of his body and 
mind, evolving from the lower to the higher 
through the line of ages in the past ; it simply 
contributes to the long chain of evidence in 
support of the eternal law of transition 
throughout all forms of matter. Change, 
philosophically viewed is a priceless blessing, 
while absolute rest, if it were possible, would 
be a curse of unmeasured possibilities. 

The changes produced upon the Earth and 
other worlds are comparatively small since the 
advent of man upon the globe. What is six 
days or five hundred thousand years in the 
development of our planet ? it is a mere drop in 
the ocean of time occupied in effecting changes 
so apparent at this stage of the Earth's history. 
These changes are at work to-day, but they are 
measured by ages, not hours or days. Take 



163 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

for example the coal fields of Pennsylvania, 
the decomposition of plants and their gradual 
conversion into coal is still going on. 

Through the investigations of the eminent 
geologist, Prof. Dana, we learn that some two 
thousand years are occupied in the accumula- 
tion of one foot of coal, hence centuries must 
elapse ere this change or increase is at all per- 
ceptible. As we stand upon the bank of a 
running stream, and view the steady march 
over its rocky bed, we are unaware of the grad- 
ual diminution or waste of the rock, caused by 
the unobserved wearing action of water in mo- 
tion. With delight, attended with wonder and 
amazement we see the great Niagara rushing 
headlong over the rocky cliff, little aware as we 
view it, that the falls are receding and the 
gorge through which the river flows (some 
seven miles long and 200 feet or more in depth) 
was cut by the erosive action of this falling 
stream one foot a year, which in the same ratio 
must have occupied some 36,000 years to have 
cut the gorge its present length. The can on 
of the Colorado presents to us features more 



164 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

marvelous even, in the slow and continuous 
erosive action of the running stream. There a 
gorge some 250 miles in length with high em- 
bankments, in some places reaching one, two 
and three thousand feet through a solid rock 
eight miles long and some 800 feet in depth, 
must have occupied, according to some es- 
timates 250,000 years to have accomplished the 
entire cut that nature there exhibits. Air in 
motion is equally slow but sure in wearing 
away the prominences of the Earth's surface. 
"The mills of the Gods grind slow but exceed- 
ing sure." Toss a ball through the air and if 
it were not for gravitation and the resistance 
of the atmosphere opposing its passage, the ball 
would move on forever, the same as the Earth 
when separating or thrown off from the great 
planetary and solar nebula mass, the motion or 
impetus given it, continued from the beginning 
rolling through space, rotating daily on its axis 
and making its yearly revolution about the cen- 
tral mass, the Sun, at the same time, as some 
astronomers assert, moving along with the 
latter and sister planets towards the Constella- 
tion Hercules at the speed of 158,105 miles an 



165 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

hour. These movements are imperceptible to 
our ordinary senses, as imperceptible as the 
rapid movement of the railroad car in which 
we travel ; should the fixed objects observed 
from the window in passing be removed from 
our view, nothing is left to measure at sight 
the rapidity of motion, and it is only through 
a familiarity with astronomical science and 
physics that the movement of bodies through 
space is at all understood or appreciated. 



166 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

CHAPTER XL 

Reason in Animals. 

Reason is the deliberate exercise of thought. 
Instinct is the hereditary transmission of a 
fixed habit, the latter is as inherent in man as 
in the brute. Some men are moved more by- 
instinct than reason, they are ushered into 
existence a helpless, thoughtless babe, and with 
the instinct of a brute nurses as readily as a 
pup or a calf. Years pass by and it develops 
into manhood, he goes to the polls, asks no 
questions, reasons not with himself or anybody 
else, but mechanically and instinctively votes 
as his papa and his great grand papa voted. 
He attends church, pays liberally to its sup- 
port, and should he be asked why he attends 
this special church, he perhaps may be able to 
repeat the creed, further than that he knows 
nothing, sufficient is it for him that his father, 
his great grandfather and the whole line of 
ancestors belonged to the same church, be it 



167 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

Catholic, Methodist, or Universalist, to him it 
is simply mechanical, instinctive, a hereditary 
custom or habit, that prompts his attendance to 
his place of worship, not reason, hence instinct 
is a part of man's make-up, as with animals, 
and reason is a part of the animal's function, 
as it is in man, but of course in a far less de- 
gree. Take our most domesticated animal, the 
dog, observe his movements when in search of 
his master as he approaches the crotch of two 
roads. He hesitates as to which road to take, 
he looks up one road and then the other, he is 
puzzled which to choose. Why does he hesi- 
tate ? It is because he is exercising his reason 
and thinking which road his master took. If 
it was instinct he would not hesitate and puzzle 
his brain, and if it was the scent of his master's 
footsteps, he would not hesitate to fol- 
low it whichever way it led, but he has 
lost the scent, and must exercise his reason 
to determine which road to choose, and 
after careful consideration, he decides and 
off he trots on the road of his choice. An 
elephant as he approaches a bridge, hesi- 
tates before crossing. He tests the structure 



168 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

by putting one foot carefully upon it, if in his 
opinion it is strong enough to hold him, he will 
proceed cautiously along, reasoning the while 
in his progress over it. If in his opinion it is 
not strong enough to hold his massive form, no 
power on earth can force him to walk over it. 
A monkey will carry a stone up a tree and drop 
it on a nut on the ground to crack it. Many 
faculties possessed by man are enjoyed by the 
lower animals. Horses like men possess good 
and bad dispositions. Some are kind and 
gentle and never stirred to anger, others are 
easily excited and show their resentment at 
the foot of the first hill ; they'll not budge an 
inch until their stubborn will is satisfied. 

Dogs are as jealous as men and some wo- 
men when more attention and praise are given 
others than to them. Monkeys display the 
same affection and common sense for their 
young as man. A cat speaks when she stands 
at a door and asks its mistress to open it. A 
dog speaks when he observes his master with 
a piece of meat; his bark is pleading for it. 
Some time ago a couple of men sat by the 
hearth in the country, a dog lay sprawled at 



[69 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

their feet. The dog's master spoke to his 
friend concerning the remarkable intelligence 
displayed by the animal and to test it, he said 
he would give him a command and would not 
change his tone as he continued his conversa- 
tion, "The cows," said he, "are in the potato 
patch." In an instant the dog jumped up, 
looked around and rushed out of doors and 
hastened to the potato patch. Not finding 
the cows therein he returned to his master. 
After a brief spell his master repeated in his 
conversation with his friend the same com- 
mand, and the dog hastened to the same patch 
again, but with the same result. No cows 
were there. He returned and laid down at the 
feet of his master. In a few minutes the mas- 
ter repeated the same command. The dog 
arose and looked knowingly into his master's 
face as much as to say, "No you don't. You 
don't fool me again," and laid down undis- 
turbed to his rest, Articulation is not confined 
to man. The jackadaw, the magpie and the 
parrot chatter with ease, and at times much 
reason is displayed with it. A Mr. Jesse in 
England owned a parrot that would cry, laugh, 



70 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

sneeze and cough, and then exclaim, "What a 
bad cold !" And when a lady entered would 
say "How d' ye do, marm. So bad, so bad, got 
such a cold." It would sing, and when it 
made a discord, he would exclaim, "Oh la !" 
and begin again on another key. When one 
enquired where Mrs. Jesse was, the parrot 
would cry out. "Down stairs." When 
laughing, it would stop and exclaim, "Don't 
make me laugh so. I shall die! I shall 
die !" 

A lighted cigar was put into his cage. The 
smoke annoyed him. He clutched the cigar 
in his claws and threw it out of his cage and 
was relieved. Was that instinct? Instinct 
is a fixed habit. This incident was accidental, 
and to get rid of the disagreeable tobacco 
fumes required a little thought, and nothing 
but thought in the form of reason, could have 
prompted the parrot in his deliberate manner 
to remove the cause of its annoyance. An 
ape when taught to use spoons to feed itself 
will do it easily, and it will also make its bed 
and lay in it like man. A monkey domesti- 
cated with a cat, was annoyed by the feline 
scratching him at play. So at once to rid 



171 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

himself of that annoyance, he grabbed the cat 
and proceeded to bite off its claws. After its 
successful accomplishment he rested satisfied 
that he would have no further trouble. There 
was cause and effect, and the reasoning of 
the monkey must have been in that line to have 
proceeded with the cat in that manner. Near- 
ly all animals have brains. Some more than 
others, and this inequality is quite con- 
spicuous among men. In some of the lower 
order of animals the brains are very minute, 
and not confined to the head, but are scattered 
along the entire length of their body in two 
or three ganglions or bunches. The very 
lowest order of animals have no brains, and 
from them we see not the slightest manifesta- 
tion of thought, either instinct or reason. Just 
what we might expect in the absence of brains. 
But as we advance higher in the scale of life, 
brains develop. The horse is the noblest of 
all animals, and to deny him the power of 
thought is an insult to his acknowledged in- 
telligence. Prof. Kruger relates a story of a 
horse that outrivalled the sagacity and fidelity 
of the dog. "A friend of mine," says he, "who 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

was one dark night riding home through a 
wood, had the misfortune to strike his head 
against the branch of a tree and fell from his 
horse stunned by the blow. The horse im- 
mediately returned to the house they had left, 
which stood about a mile distant. He found 
the door closed, the family had retired to bed. 
He pawed at the door until one of them hear- 
ing the noise arose and opened it, and to his 
surprise saw the horse of his friend. No 
sooner was the door opened than the horse 
turned around, and the man suspecting there 
was something wrong, followed the animal, 
which led him directly to the spot where his 
master lay on the ground in a fainting fit. An- 
other is related of a horse who exhibited more 
reason and common sense than his master. 
The latter returning home one evening drank 
rather hard at an ale house. He could not 
keep an erect position on his horse, and rolled 
off the animal into the road. His horse stood 
still, but after remaining patiently for some 
time and not perceiving any disposition in his 
rider to get up and proceed farther, he took 
him by the collar and shook him. ■ This had 



73 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

little or no effect, for the man only gave a 
grumble of dissatisfaction at having his repose 
disturbed. The horse was not to be put off 
with any such evasion, and so he applied his 
mouth to one of his coat laps, and after several 
attempts by dragging at it to raise him upon 
his feet, the coat lap gave way. Three in- 
dividuals who witnessed this extraordinary 
proceeding then went up and assisted in put- 
ting the fellow on his horse, who trotted away 
and safely reached his home. Brains we 

find in animals no higher than insects, and 
here we expect to find the manifestation of 
thought and reason just in proportion to the 
quantity and quality of brain mass, and this we 
find among the insects in the ant and bee. The 
ants form a colony and engage in battle— one 
colony with another — in the struggle for su- 
premacy the same as man. The bee displays 
remarkable intelligence in all of their move- 
ments. A fox exhibits a deal of thought 
when caught in a trap and released. He 
will play dead, and elude his captors by 
escaping when their backs are turned. 

Another illustration of reason in animals 



74 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

was exhibited in my cat at home. When he 
is in the house at night, I usually put him 
down cellar, but one night failing to find him, 
I supposed he was out of doors, and hence 
retired to my chamber. I had but just got 
into bed, when there was a rattling of my 
door. It was the habit of our cat to reach up 
to the knob of any door he wanted opened and 
rattle the knob to be let into the room. On 
hearing a rattle of my chamber door knob, 
I jumped out of bed and opened the door, and 
there to my surprise our cat stood and mewed 
as if to say, "Come down stairs and open the 
cellar door and let me down." The moment 
I opened the chamber door he looked up into 
my face, mewed and passed down the stairs, 
turning partially around to see if I was fol- 
lowing him, and then went to the cellar door 
and mewed again for me to open the door and 
let him down, which I did. The cat reasoned 
that I had retired ; he wanted to go down cel- 
lar, and the only way it could be done was to 
go up stairs, knock on my door by shaking 
the knob, and ask me in cat talk to go down 
and open the door. There was no instinct 



75 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

about that, it was reason pure and simple. 
The vertical portion of the brain is nearly as 
large in the dolphin, as in man, and nearly 
so horizontally. But in the anterior por- 
tion it is only about half. The tiger and 
dromedary stand next. The vultures stand 
first among the birds. The size of the brain 
in animals, however, does not always in- 
dicate the capacity of thought, or amount of 
intelligence, for that depends largely on the 
convolutions, the windings and intricacies of 
the brain as well as the amount of gray matter 
therein. In the complexity of the convolu- 
tions and the thickness of the gray matter in 
the cerebrum or the frontal portion of the 
brain, the seat of intelligence in man, far sur- 
passes the dolphin. In these respects the 
higher quadramana present the nearest ap- 
proach to it, but their brain is much inferior in 
size. In descending the scale of mammalia, 
there may be observed a gradual simplification 
in the general structure of the brain. Among 
all the birds there is none in which the brain is 
so proportionally large as in the parrot tribe. 
The educability of which, as shown in their 



176 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

prompt excercise of thought, is familiar to 
every one, while the domesticated, but unintel- 
ligent turkey has a brain of scarcely half the 
proportional size. The very small size of the 
cerebrum, the seat of intelligence in reptiles and 
fishes, present but feeble indications of intelli- 
gence. The shark among fishes has the larg- 
est cerebrum, the superior intelligence of 
which is well known to those who have had 
the opportunity of observing their habits, and 
it is interesting to remark that their brain oc- 
casionally presents an appearance of rudi- 
mentary convolutions. 

"A little fish, named the Chaeloton 
Rostratus, is in the habit of eject- 
ing from its prolonged snout, drops of 
fluid, which strike the insects that hap- 
pen to be near the surface of the water and 
cause them to fall into it so as to come within 
its own reach. Now by laws of refraction of 
light, the place of the insect in the air will not 
really be that at which it appears to the fish 
in the water, but it will be a little below its ap- 
parent place, and to this point the aim must be 
directed. But the difference between the real 



77 



Prop 12 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

and apparent place will not be constant, for 
the more perpendicularly the rays enter the wa- 
ter, the less will be the variation, and on the 
other hand the more oblique the direction the 
greater will be the difference." Says Dr. Car- 
penter in addition, "It is impossible, but that by 
an intuitive perception the real place of the in- 
sect is known to the fish in every instance as 
perfectly as it could be to the most sagacious 
human mathematician, or to a clever marksman 
who had learned the requisite allowance in the 
flight of a bird in each case by a long exper- 
ience." One thing is certain, that the higher 
the degree of intelligence which we find char- 
acteristic of a particular race, the greater is 
the degree of variation that we meet in the 
characters of individuals, thus every one knows 
that there are stupid dogs and smart dogs, ill 
tempered dogs and good tempered dogs. 
And so with horses, as there are stupid men 
and smart men, ill tempered men and good 
tempered men, but no one can distinguish be- 
tween a good or an ill tempered ant or between 
a good or an ill tempered spider, simply be- 
cause all their actions are prompted by an un- 



178 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

varying instinct. What is the peculiarity of 
one class of insects is common with all in the 
same class, and today they are no more intelli- 
gent than a thousand years ago. That is in- 
stinct. In the higher class of animals this un- 
varying quality of habit does not prevail. For 
example (says Fowler) "We can by crossing 
vary the forms of cattle with astonishing 
nicety, but we have no means of altering the 
nature of the animal, once born, by means of 
treatment and feeding. This power, however, 
is undeniably possessed by the bees. When 
the queen bee is lost by death or otherwise, 
they choose a grub from among those who are 
born for workers, then make three cells into 
one and placing the grub there they build a 
tube around it. They afterward build another 
cell of a pyramidal form into which the grub 
grows. They feed it with peculiar food and 
tend it with extreme care. It becomes when 
transformed from the worm to the fly, not a 
worker, but a queen bee." The attachment of 
the dog, cat, horse or elephant, is evidently 
however of a much higher kind than of the 
more inferior animals, and involves a much 



79 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

larger number of considerations and their ac- 
tions are evidently the result in many instances 
of a complex train of reasoning, different in no 
essential respect from that which man would 
perform in similar circumstances. "The 
epithet half reasoning," says Dr. Carpenter, 
"commonly applied to these animals does not 
express the whole truth, for their mental 
processes are of the same kind with those of 
man, differing only in degree." The quality 
of brain mass has more to do with the develop- 
ment of thought or reason than quantity, 
whether in man or beast. 

We see this exemplified in man. Some pos- 
sess large heads, and a large quantity of brain 
mass, but the quality is poor, and but little 
thought or reason is developed. Take the ant, 
if the brain filled the entire portion of its head 
the size would not be larger than the head of a 
pin, and the bee but little larger, and what a 
wonderful amount of instinctive intelligence is 
displayed in so small a space. If as much was 
exhibited in man in proportion to the size of 
his massive brain, vastly greater minds and 
works should we witness than in the past cen- 



180 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

turies. The time was when man was much 
lower in the scale of life than at present. The 
only tools the primitive or prehistoric man pos- 
sessed were made of stone. Indians live to- 
day who use nothing but stone and wood im- 
plements. In my travels on the Pacific coast 
in 1874 I met a class of Indians and joined 
them in their feasts. Nothing but stone and 
willow baskets and fagots were used to cook 
their food. Nothing but hands in place of 
knives, forks and spoons was used to eat their 
food, and acorn soup eaten with fingers is not 
as easy a matter with civilized man. Most of 
the food eaten by these Indians was uncooked. 
Grasshoppers uncooked were counted choice 
morsels at their feasts. Worms were dug out 
of the bark of trees, and greedily devoured, 
and these we call men, and so they are, but 
little are they in advance of beasts and the ape. 
If these men are so low in our own time, how 
much lower must have been the primitive or 
prehistoric man ages and ages past. We 
speak of this to show that there is not so very 
wide a difference between the reason of the 
lowest races of men and the highest order of 



181 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

animals. True enough animals in general 
cannot talk, and yet when one listens to the 
matchless eloquence of Phillips, which lifts the 
very soul of man into unity with God, and 
turns to the wild Australian who can scarcely 
count four in his own tongue, and to the Wild 
men of Borneo whose only answer to your log- 
ic is a grunt, one is compelled to the conclusion 
that the speech or talk of the parrot and the in- 
telligent answers given, is not so far below the 
lowest order of men as the latter is below the 
silvery tongued orator Phillips, or Gladstone. 
We speak of the savageness and brutality of 
beasts, and yet how little of this is manifested 
in domesticated animals. We find it more of- 
ten exhibited in some men, as in the early 
history of Rome, England, and but a century 
or two ago in France. The Feejeeans kill their 
parents when old and decrepit, and eat men 
and women, enemies and captives. Our early 
aborigines in western regions, during their 
long marches, killed the lame and sick who 
hindered them in the progress of their journey. 
How much in advance are they of the noble 
Newfoundland dog who has saved so many 



182 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

lives from a watery grave, or the St. Bernard 
who upon the snowy Alps rescues the un- 
fortunate traveller from an icy, cold grave. 
During the civil war of '6i-'65 it was stated 
there were three Quakers in one of the Caro- 
linas who were drafted in the Confederate 
army. Their peace principles forbade them 
engaging in war to kill their fellow man, and 
they refused to fight. The Confederates said 
they must fight and provoked at their repeated 
refusal, they bound their limbs, laid them on 
the ground and ordered the cavalry men to 
run their horses upon and trample them, but 
the horses were more reasonable, kind and 
thoughtful than their human masters, and 
leaped over the prostrate bodies of the Quak- 
ers, without touching them, and notwithstand- 
ing their repeated attempts to force the horses 
to trample them, they would not, and the men 
were released and sent home. It is because 
of the false, prevailing notion that the dumb 
animals possess no feeling, common with man, 
that we speak for them. It is because that 
the lexicographers define man as endowed 
with reason, and the dumb creation not, that 



'83 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

we speak. It is because of the possession of 
these attributes by the higher order of animals 
in common with us, though in a far less de- 
gree, and the utter ignorance of the fact by- 
most men, resulting in the injustice and cruelty 
meted to these silent creatures that we speak 
for them. 



184 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Probable cause of gold and silver ores being 
found in extensive mountain ranges only. 

In my journey ings down into the bowels of 
the earth in Nevada and California for the 
purpose of studying the formation of gold and 
silver ores, I reached one conclusion, and that 
was no gold and silver ores will ever be found 
anywhere but in extensive mountain ranges. 
It is a noteworthy fact that the greatest gold 
and silver mines in our hemisphere are found 
in the Sierra Madre range in Mexico, the 
Colorado mines in the Rockies, the mines in 
the lofty Sierra Nevada range, and in the An- 
des of South America. Again, all the moun- 
tain ranges in our country and throughout the 
western hemisphere run northerly and south- 
erly, so do the silver and gold lodes or veins 
of ore in all mines I have visited. Another 
fact is worthy of mention. I have noticed that 



t 8 5 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

in trap dikes in most of the ranges have the 
same tread northerly and southerly, and even 
the slabs pointing above ground that I have 
observed on the foot hills of these mountains, 
looking like grave stones in an ancient ceme- 
tery, preserved the same direction. Trap 
dikes, as is well known by scientists, are rocks 
formed by the action of heat. A fissure or 
crack due to some internal convulsions exists 
upon the earth's surface, and through the 
force of steam and gas generated below, the 
molten, plastic mass composing the trap dikes, 
is forced into the fissure and hardens in time 
into trap rock. The same process through 
the force of steam below the earth surface, 
forced gold, silver, copper, lead, quicksilver 
and all heavy ores into the open spaces or fis- 
sures, finely scattered about, and thus we find 
them in lodes or veins. This answers the 
question why we find these ores in veins or 
lodes, but it does not meet the question why 
we find gold and silver ore mostly confined to 
lofty mountain ranges, while other ores, such 
as copper, iron, lead, etc., are generally found 
elsewhere. To be sure we find some of these 



186 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

ores associated with gold and silver in exten- 
sive mountain ranges, but they are very scant- 
ily represented. The greatest copper mines, 
lead mines and iron are found a thousand 
miles or more from these lofty ranges. What 
then is the cause of gold and silver being gen- 
erally confined to extensive and lofty mountain 
ranges in the western hemisphere? Modern 
science advances the theory that mountains 
were not suddenly elevated as formerly sup- 
posed, but are the result of gradual elevations ; 
that the cooling off of our globe after the 
crust was formed, caused the depressions and 
elevations that we witness on the earth's crust 
to-day; and as time rolls on and the cooling 
of the earth continues, by the escape of heat 
from the interior, depressions and elevations 
will continue to increase, the same as the de- 
pressions and elevations upon the surface of 
a baked apple increases while the heat is es- 
caping and the juices are drying and solidify- 
ing. To whatever extent this theory is true, 
— and no one can deny its truth — there is noth- 
ing in it to contradict the hypothesis which 
I now advance that the probable convulsion 



187 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

of the earth's fluid center in its early stages of 
development forced up molten masses through 
the crust, not to the height that the lofty 
mountain ranges have now attained, but to on- 
ly a moderate height, and as the earth became 
higher developed by the immense loss of heat, 
and the crust grew harder and thicker, the 
elevation of these mountain ranges became 
more gradual and rose mostly through the 
contraction of the earth, causing elevations and 
depressions heretofore explained. Do we 

generally find gold and silver ores on the sum- 
mits, or very far up the mountain side? 
Usually not. Most all mines I have visited 
were on the foot hills of these lofty ranges ; 
and that corroborates the theory that when 
these ranges were first raised to moderate 
heights, gold and silver ores were forced up 
at the same time. This will now lead us into 
the immediate study of the causes of the pe- 
culiar location of these ores. 

Gold and silver are among the heaviest of 
metals, especially gold, which has a specific 
gravity of nineteen. Platinum alone, of all 
the metals is heavier. It follows then of 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

course that gold, being one of the heaviest of 
known substances sank, or remained in the 
centre of the earth mass during its liquid 
development, and when the early erup- 
tions and elevations took place, heretofore ex- 
plained, the force must have been terrific, to 
start from the earth's centre these heavy 
metals, as gold and silver, and the lofty moun- 
tain ranges upon which these ores are found. 
And how can we come to any different con- 
clusion when we must know that gold and sil- 
ver being among the heaviest of substances, 
obeyed the laws of gravity when the earth was 
a fluid mass, and could not have existed in any 
other place than at the lowest spot in the 
earth's centre. To ascertain this fact or law, 
fill, as I have done in California, a pan full 
of earth with small flakes of gold scattered 
through it, and wash the earth and heavy 
sand away. One need have no fear of the 
gold passing off, for it will invariably find its 
way to the bottom. The common earth 
passes away, then the black sand, and the 
pure gold remains. We must not lose sight 
of the fact that the eruptive or lifting force 



[89 



New Propositions in Philosophy. 

that it took to raise these heavy gold and sil- 
ver ores from the centre to the earth's 
surface must have required the same 
gigantic force (and operating at the same 
time) that raised the loftiest and most ex- 
tensive mountain ranges in our own hemis- 
phere, and upon which as before stated, these 
ores are mostly found. It is upon this hy- 
pothesis, that I put little faith in the discovery 
or existence of any considerable amount of 
gold and silver on any spot of the earth's sur- 
face away from extensive mountain ranges. 
Some years ago there was an excitement in 
the town of Newbury, Mass., by the discovery 
of a little gold ore on one or more of the farms 
of that village. I had no faith in the con- 
tinued mining of the ore, and so said this in 
the columns of the Boston Commonwealth, 
published a decade or more ago. The excite- 
ment and mining of the ore met a sudden 
death as predicted. Invest in no gold mine 
east of the Mississippi valley. Nova Scotia 
mines a little, but nothing in comparison to 
the great mines of the far west in the vast 
mountain ranges. 



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